If you cook mostly for praise (as I do), I maintain that baking bread returns the highest return for the work involved. Gluten haters and keto dieters aside, there are few who don’t love fresh warm bread. And of all the breads, few reward the baker with the oooos and ahhhhs of a fresh bagel.
Even for regular bakers, bagels can be intimidating due to the extra and somewhat mysterious step of boiling them before baking but, they are very easy to make and with good bagels getting harder to buy all the time, well worth the effort. Boiling is the magic that makes a bagel what it is by gelatinizing the starch on the surface resulting in that classic chew while the sugar and baking soda in the water produce a beautiful brown crust.
I was recently at a party that my cousin had in honor of her graduation and when I introduced myself to someone, he said, “Are you the Dennis of the bagels?”
It turned out that my cousin had shared my recipe with him, and he had been making them ever since. He was excited to share with me, how much he loved making them.
It occurred to me that ‘my’ recipe which is based on the formula in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Bakers Apprentice deserves to have wider distribution. With that in mind, here is the recipe with my custom instructions (i.e. there is no copyright infringement here.)
Makes one dozen bagels
Ingredients
750 g Bread Flour (I am partial to King Arthur, but any will work, even all-purpose if that is all you have)
428 g cool water (whatever temperature comes out of the cold tap is fine. No need to chill it.)
4 g Instant Yeast
12 g Salt
7 g sugar or diastatic malt powder
To a large bowl add the water, the yeast, and sugar or malt powder and stir to dissolve. If your yeast is old and you want to make sure it is alive, let this mixture sit for 5-10 minutes until you see some bubbles rising. If your yeast if fresh or you have used it recently with success, you can skip this.
Add enough flour to make a batter like pancake batter and mix with a spoon until smooth.
Let rest for 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes.
Add the salt and most of the rest of the flour holding back about a handful or two for the kneading.
Mix with a spoon until combined. Use a dough scraper to incorporate all the flour on the sides and the bottom until the dough resembles a shaggy mass. (Note on the dough scraper. These things are so cheap and so useful that it is worth getting one if you bake bread at all. I buy them a dozen at a time and give them away to people when I teach bread baking.)
Let rest for 15 minutes. This gives the flour a chance to absorb the water.
Use the remaining flour to cover a bit of countertop and your hands.
Turn the dough out on to the floured countertop and with floured hands begin to knead. It will may be sticky at first. Knead by folding and turning 90 degrees for a few minutes until the dough comes together as a ball.
Here is a secret with kneading. You don’t need to knead continuously for long. Knead 5-10 times and let the dough rest covering it with the bowl. After 10 minutes repeat the procedure. After the third or fourth repetition the dough will feel smooth and elastic. You will know when this has happened. In this way, the dough mostly kneads itself.
Try not to add more than the total flour measured but if you must, sparingly dust the counter or your hands to continue being able to knead. You probably won’t have to. This dough is not very sticky because it is such a low hydration.
Note: If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, use it. Because this is a very stiff dough (low hydration), a mixer will make it much easier. But if you don’t have one, it will still be just fine, you will just have to work a tiny bit harder.
When the dough is smooth. Form into a ball and put into a container lightly oiled with vegetable oil that closes tightly or a large bowl covered with plastic wrap. A dough rising container is a worthwhile investment if you make bread more than just occasionally.
Now if time allows, refrigerate the dough for 24-48 hours. A slow cold ferment allows the dough to develop more flavor. I will generally take the dough out of the fridge at bedtime the night before I want to bake. The dough will come up to temperature and rise and it will be ready to bake in the morning. It should have doubled in volume. Otherwise, the day you want to bake, remove from the fridge and let come to room temperature and double in volume.
If you want to bake them the same day as you make the dough. Just double the yeast in the recipe and start with warm water that is about 100 F/35 C. It should feel warm but not hot on your hand.
Remove the dough from the container and using a scale cut the dough with your dough scraper or a knife into 100 gram pieces or 125 grams if you want bigger bagels.
Form each piece into a ball by stretching the dough over itself and tucking the excess under the bottom and pinching it closed. Each one should look like a taught smooth sphere.
Let the dough balls rest on your impeccably clean countertop covered with a damp towel for 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 450 F. If you have a baking stone or steel use it. Bring a large pot of water to boil. To the water add a spoonful of salt and a teaspoon of baking soda and a spoonful of sugar or malt powder. The exact amount of these items not that important. Watch the pot, it will boil over easily making a sticky mess on your stovetop.
Take each doughball and poke a hole through the center by pinching it between your thumb and index finger. Then using the index fingers of each hand gently stretch the dough like a rubber band moving your hands in a circle around each other. Add more fingers as the hole stretches larger until all four fingers of each had are orbiting each other. The dough will look more like a fat onion ring than a bagel. Don’t worry, the bagels will blow up in the oven and the hole will get smaller. If you don’t make the hole bigger than you think it should be at this stage, you’ll end up with a dimple rather than a hole in your final product. It will taste just fine though.
Drop each formed bagel into the boiling solution. You can boil 3 at time if your pot is large enough. After 30 seconds flip them over using a large slotted spoon or strainer. After another 30 seconds remove them with the strainer and place them on a clean towel for a moment to absorb the water then transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Now make an egg wash by beating one egg with a teaspoon (5ml) of water. Brush the boiled bagels with the egg wash (makes them shiny and helps topping stick if using) and top with poppy, sesame seeds, dried onion or anything else you like.
Six 100 gram bagels should fit on a sheet. They should not touch on the sheet.
If you have a baking stone, you can slide the parchment on to the stone. If not, the whole baking sheet can go in the oven. You can prepare the next sheet while the first is baking.
Baking time is about 20 minutes. Turn partway through baking if needed to get even browning. Bagels are done when they are nice and brown. Instant read thermometer should register 200-210 internal temperature.
Cool on a rack and wait until completely cool before cutting and eating. Top with cream cheese, lox, tomatoes, onions, and capers.
These freeze very nicely. Rewarm in a toaster oven to restore the crackle crust.
If you understand Baker’s Math and want to adjust the recipe to make a different amount here is the formula. If you don’t understand it and want to, get Peter Reinhart’s book or email me for an explanation.
Let me know if you make these and how they turn out.