Thought I would write a blog about these bagels that I made a few weeks ago, I've been so busy over the last few weeks that I've not had time to do any blogging!
I got this recipe card from my father-in-law from a National Newspaper he reads. I knew I had just started baking bread so saved the card for me!
Like all homemade bread, there are very few ingredients in bagels, unlike shop bought ones, which can be full of preservatives and flavour enhancers. This is the recipe for the bagels.
500g strong white flour
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
25g butter
1 tsp dried instant yeast
240 ml warm water
I used my beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer to mix the dough, I sometimes mix dough by hand but as I've only just bought my mixer I wanted to play with it!
I mixed the dough for 10 minutes, as I do with with my White Tin Loaves.
I then left the dough to rise for an hour in a bowl covered with clingfilm. The dough doubled in size during that time but its consistency was much denser than normal bread.
I then divided the dough into 9 equal (or in my case, not so equal!!) pieces.
I then shaped the pieces of dough into bagel shapes by making the dough into little round balls and then pushing my finger through the centre of each dough ball. Not perfect as you can see but never mind!
The bagels then need to be cooked in boiling salted water. Have the water boiling hard before you put the bagels in so that they start to 'puff up' as soon as they enter the water. The bagels need to be cooked for 5 minutes on each side, so keep the water on a high temperature to keep the water on the boil all the time-the kitchen was filled with steam once I'd cooked all 3 batches of 3 bagels!!
The bagels look very anaemic when they come out of the boiling water-pale, doughy and not very appetising!!
The bagels are now ready for coating! First they must be dipped into an egg dip made from a well beaten egg. Then I coated my bagels with some seeds-I used Poppy seeds, Sesame seeds and Linseeds.
Once they have their seed coating they are ready to be baked in a very very hot oven. The recipe said at 240°C but my oven has a maximum temperature of 220°C so I put my bagels in at this temperature but had the shelf at the very top of the oven where the highest temperature would be. I baked my bagels for about 15-20 minutes.
And this is my completed bagels. All shapes. All sizes. And all homemade!
The texture inside is quite dense, as bagels should be, so they are very filling but absolutely delicious.
My favourites were the bagels coated in Linseeds, which I love. I toasted my bagel and ate it with a little spread of butter on-yummy!
