Bagels!
by emily • October 23, 2009 • Uncategorized • 2 Comments
I finally bit the bullet and bought a large jar of yeast. On tonights agenda : bagels.
After a solid hour of research learning what exactly makes a bagel, a bagel I decided I would follow this recipe, with a few adjustments outlined below. It turns out that the only substantial difference between a loaf of bread, and a bagel is that you boil the bagels before you bake them. You boil them! I thought that was crazy.
Interesting facts:
- I used sesame seeds, garlic, and parmesean cheese as toppings
- the sesame seeds actually lifted the bagels off of the baking sheet (I coated both sides), and prevents burning! The garlic and parm cheese bagels were a little too burnt on the bottom side, but the sesame seed bagels were perfect.
- I didn’t have parchment, so the non sesame bagels stuck to the baking sheet. Totally lame. I recommend parchment, or perhaps a lightly greased sheet
- I took the bagels out of the boiling water and immediately plopped them into a pile-o-sesame seeds. The non seeded bagels went right on the sheet. Perhaps that was my downfall.
- Next time I make these, I will try to incorporate olive oil, perhaps olives, and other things that normally are toppings, into the dough itself.
The final conclusion: delicious. Certainly not the Real NY bagel the recipe claims it to be, but still yummy. They were a little stiff, and the outer shell was too thick- I like me a shiny, crispy outer shell with warm fluffy inside. These were more of a thick crunchy shell with warm fluffy insides. In time, if I can tweek the recipe and find a store to buy myself a nice 25 or 50 lb bag of flour, these would actually be cheaper to make than buying bagels. Delicious, and cheap. What more could a crow want?
cool! you always make me want to go home from work and cook things! Maybe if you change up the baking temperature or use an eggwash before coating with sesame seeds you could get a different texture crust? Could you incorporate an extra rise somehow before baking? Maybe that’d help fluff them up to be less stiff…
I really like this idea… total control for perfect sized bagels!
PS – did you do the refridgeration bit? that seems like the biggest annoyance, like when you have to chill cookie dough and all you really want is to MAKE THEM RIGHT NOW! and then i always end up eating half the cookie dough and then i get sick with worry about salmonella… but i don’t see myself having that same eating-the-dough weakness with bagel dough.
Well, the inside was really perfect, so I’m hesitant to change much to fix the crust issue. Billy said it was perfect, but I owuld like to fix the crust. I think an egg wash might do the trick- and maybe kneeding alittle more to smooth it over. The stiffness wound up being appearence- when we ate it it squished down and was soooo yummy
I obviously skipped the refrigeration. It was the only recipe with it in it so i figured it was bs. Also the bagel got the wierd dry outer layer thing from even sitting for 2 monites, so I didn’t want to risk the 2 hours.