Bagels

After a recent trip to NYC, my friend Molly and I were lamenting the availability of good bagels in Morgantown WV. We both had a few truly great bagels in New York. they are available everywhere and toasted with cream cheese, they are the best.


So I decided to make a batch and see if I could make some good ones.

I have to say, that like any yeast bread, bagels are very satisfying to make. I love the smell of yeast rising and baking. My house smelled soo so good. I did an overnight cold rise in the fridge and baked them on day two. I made plain and some with toasted sesames on the top.

This picture is taken when the bagels are in the water bath being boiled for a minute. This step gives the bagel the chewy outside texture and only takes a minute to do.

I only made a dozen. I used the recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. I love Julia Child and Dorie Greenspan and this is a great cookbook. The bagels recipe is on pages 87-90. It is to long to type out, but this is a great resource and anyone interested in baking should get this book. I liked her advise to throw a few ice cubes in the bottom of your 500 degree oven when you put your bagels in to bake. It creates steam and helps the texture of your bagels while baking.

These bagels have come out of the water and I have brushed on some egg/water and coated them with sesame seeds. On my baking stone I put down some cornmeal the prevent the bagels from sticking. I like the added texture too.

Everyone should make bagels. They taste so good fresh and are no harder to make than bread.

My bagels had no real hole in the middle. In the recipe it says to make big holes before boiling and I thought I did, but after baking they were just indentations. Good for sandwiches though. These bagels were eaten so quickly that no sandwich got made with them.