Many of the recipes I have been writing about lately seem to take a lot of time. The dough needs to rise for eight hours or chill over-night, or both. Well this week is nothing like that. This week we’ll be making water bagels, and they only two hours from start to finish.
Bagels are great bread. They have an interesting crust because they are boiled before backing. They are also incredibly versatile, from the basic recipe you can make garlic, onion, salt, sesame seed or poppy seed with just the judicious application of the topping you prefer.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
There are a couple of tricks to making great bagels at home. The first is to have all you gear and ingredients ready to go, before you start. The fast rising time and the need to boil them really favors the prepared cook, so read the whole recipe, get the pan ready, get all your ingredients measured and ready to go before you start the process. If you do this you will be way ahead of the game.
The next thing is that the water needs to be really hot but not boiling when it is time to put the bagels in. They need to cook in the water for just a short time, but if the water is not hot enough, then they won’t get the right texture from it.
Now that you have the cautions, lets get on to making bagels!
Water Bagels
Ingredients:
3 ½ cups flour (approximately)
2 packages (4 ½ teaspoons) dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 ½ cups hot water (120-130 degrees)
3 quarts water
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
1 egg white beaten with a teaspoon of water
Topping of choice (1/4 cup minced garlic, or ½ cup mined red onion or 1/8 cup coarse or Kosher salt or 1/8 cup sesame seeds or 1/8 cup poppy seed or mix and match as desired)
Baking Pans:
1 baking sheet, greased and sprinkled with corn meal (my usual parchment paper does not work, and do not skip the corn meal!!)
One 4 ½ quart sauce pan or stock pot.
Method:
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer measure out 3 cups of flour and the rest of the dry ingredients. Stir to combine. Pour in the hot water and stir vigorously with a spoon or the paddle attachment for two minutes. Add the rest of the flour a little bit at a time, until the batter gets thick and heavy.
At this point if you are using a stand mixer, attach the dough hook to knead. If you are doing this by hand, turn the dough out onto a well floured work surface. Knead for 10 minutes with a strong push-turn-fold method or by machine at medium-low speed.
If the dough is elastic or sticky, add sprinkles of flour. After kneading bagel dough should be firm and solid when pinched, so don’t worry about putting in too much flour. You might use as much as another ¼ cup over the 3 ½ cups of flour, it all depends on how the dough develops.
Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let it rise at room temperature for 30 minutes, by then it will have doubled in volume.
While it the dough is rising, put the 3 quarts of water in a large pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the sugar and turn the water down to medium high. This should give you water that is just simmering.
Prepare your toppings and your baking sheet.
Shaping:
When the dough is risen, turn it out onto a well floured work surface. Punch it down without your finger tips. Divide the dough into 10 pieces, if you like to weigh them like I do, they should be between 3 and 4 ounces each. Shape each into a ball and cover with a tea towel to rest for two minutes.
There is a method that professional bagel bakers use to make form them into the torus shape. I suck at this method and it is hard to describe in print, so I am not even going to talk about it. The way to go with this is to flatten each ball between your palms. Then use your thumb to press a deep depression in the dough. Use your fingers to tear open a hole in the dough. Work the hole until it is about two inches across (I had not made bagels in a while and forgot this part, when my batch was done there were no holes in the bagels!). Smooth the edges so it looks like a skinny bagel with a big hole. If the dough is wet or sticky on the bottom, just rub it in the flour on the work surface.
Line up your bagels on the work surface and cover with a tea towel to rise for ten minutes. The idea here is to "half-proof" the dough, so they will sink when you boil them. Nearly everyone’s first batch will not sink, they will be too proofed. Don’t sweat it, it will not affect the final result in any way that you will be able to discern.
At this point pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees and set the a rack in the middle of the oven.
Boiling:
In batches of two carefully slip your bagels into the hot water. If they do sink, wait until they surface then cook for one minute. Turn over and cook for one minute on the other side.
Remove to the prepared baking sheet and repeat with the rest of the batch. The boiling in sugar water will give your bagels a nice shiny skin; this will come out even more when baked.
Now it is time to dress your bagels up! You can just brush them with the egg-wash if you like plain bagels, but I always make some kind of flavored bagel. Just brush the tops lightly with the egg-wash and sprinkle your topping on.
Baking:
When all the bagels are egg-washed and topped, slip them into the hot oven. Bake for 15 minutes then pull them out and using a spatula flip them over. This will give the bagels a more flattened appearance and brown the bottoms as well. Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until brown and shiny.
Move the hot bagels to wire rack to cool. The toppings may look like they are burnt, but trust me they are not. These bagels are fast and easy and are a great way to give your family (or yourself) a breakfast treat on the spur of the moment.
The flours is yours.