I hope the start of 2021 has treated you well! I treated my family well with these bagels and they were a lot of work, but worth it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to make these! The Martin's Bagels recipe from King Arthur Flour spans 2 days, so it takes some preparing for, but as long as the time line works for you, it is very manageable. Not all bagel recipes require so much rising time, but according to Martin's recipe, the sitting time is important for developing flavor, so I used the max time suggestions.
Our neighbors up the street kindly gave us a bag of their homemade bagels earlier this year, so I reached out to them for help on tackling my own batch. They recommended this recipe, and with that, some suggestions! They have more experience than I do, so I took their word for it and made 16 bagels instead of 12. More bagels means more surface area, which our neighbors believe is the tastiest part, and I would have to agree! I experimented with four different toppings and left a few plain.
My favorite seasoning has always been everything, so I knew I would to make a bunch accordingly, but that still left me with a dozen bagels to play with. Because this recipe spans a couple days, I had plenty of time to prepare seasonings, but I unfortunately left it all to the last minute. While the bagels did their last rise before the water bath, I ran to our local general store to grab whatever seasonings I could find. Luckily, they had containers of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, minced garlic and onion flakes, each costing a pretty penny for only 16 bagels, but fully worth it. I threw together an everything bagel seasoning using this recipe as a guideline. I told my family that these bagels would be the most expensive ones they ever eat, but now that I have the seasonings, I won’t need to run out to buy them every time. Now it is all right at my fingertips! Having the seeds in separate jars allowed me to make a couple sesame seed and a couple poppy seed bagels.
When our neighbors dropped off bagels for us a while back, they included a chocolate chip one, and my older brother never forgot that. He convinced me to try a sweet bagel... it didn’t go so well. I ended up just poking chocolate chips into two of the plain bagels right before they went into the oven. I now know that to incorporate the chocolate chips well, you knead them into the dough. Next time I will do better!
I brought our neighbors a few donuts as a thank you for their help, and as the thoughtful people they are, they sent some of their own back to us along with sourdough starter! I used yeast for this recipe as listed in the ingredients, but up the street, they use sourdough starter and love it, so I can't wait to nurture my own starter! They sent along this blog post for creating and maintaining a simple sourdough starter and it is so easy to follow. Lucky for me, I just get to maintain it, but the way that the author of this post outlines starting from scratch is step by step and looks like even I couldn't screw it up!
Here is a helpful blog post on how to shape the bagels!
Yields: 12-16 bagels Active Time: 35 mins Total Time: 14 hrs
Ingredients ~
Poolish
1 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons (166g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (198g) lukewarm water (75° to 80°F)
Dough
1 1/2 cups (340g) lukewarm water*
5 1/2 cups (663g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 3/4 teaspoons (17g) salt
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
*See "tips," below.
Water Bath 2 tablespoons (43g) barley malt syrup
1 tablespoon (18g) salt
Toppings sesame seeds, coarse salt, dehydrated onion, poppy seeds, or Everything Bagel Topping
Instructions ~
To make the poolish: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and yeast. Add the water, mixing until smooth. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 to 8 hours. This broad time range is for both convenience and flavor. More time will yield more flavor, but even a few hours will be enough to make a noticeable difference.
To make the dough: In a large mixing bowl combine the poolish with the water, mixing by hand to break up the poolish. Add the flour, salt, and yeast, stirring by hand or on low speed of a stand mixer until the dough forms a cohesive, shaggy, tacky mass. Resist the urge to add more flour.
Place the dough in a bowl, cover, and allow it to rest for 2 hours, stretching and folding the dough over onto itself three or four times in the bowl after 1 hour.
Without touching the dough again, place the bowl in the refrigerator overnight, or for 8 to 12 hours.
The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces; if you have a scale each piece will weigh about 114g.
Shape each piece into a tight ball, place on a lightly floured surface, then cover and let rest for 15 to 30 minutes.
To shape the bagels: Using your fingers, poke a hole in the middle of each ball, gently expanding the hole until it’s 2” to 3” in diameter.
Return the shaped bagels to the floured surface, cover them again, and allow them to rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
While the bagels are resting, preheat the oven to 475°F. If you have a baking stone, place it on the middle rack in the oven and have ready two pieces of parchment large enough to fit the stone. To bake on baking sheets, line two pans with parchment and set aside.
To prepare the water bath: Put 4” of water in a shallow (wide) 6-quart pot, then add the barley malt syrup and the salt. Bring to a medium boil.
Carefully place three bagels at a time in the water bath. Boil the bagels for 30 seconds on one side. Using a slotted spoon, flip them over. Boil the bagels for another 60 to 90 seconds.
Remove the bagels from the water, allowing them to drip dry for a few seconds before placing them 2” to 3” apart on the prepared parchment or parchment-lined pan; you should be able to get six bagels per parchment/pan.
Sprinkle any toppings onto the bagels. Alternatively, dip the bagels into a shallow bowlful of the toppings before returning to the parchment/pan.
Bake the bagels for 20 to 25 minutes, either in two batches if baking on a stone, or rotating the pans halfway through if using baking sheets. The bagels are done when the bottoms and sides are a deep mahogany brown and firm.
Remove the bagels from the oven and cool them on a rack. Store bagels at room temperature for up to one day, or wrap and freeze for longer storage.
Tips from our Bakers
Your desired water temperature depends on a few factors, but primarily the temperature of your home will have the most influence. If your home is cool (below 70°F), you’ll want to use warmer water (between 90°F and 110°F). If your home is on the warmer side (above 70°F), use water in the lukewarm range (75°F to 90°F).
To shape bagels ahead of time and bake the following morning (to serve fresh for breakfast or brunch): Shape, place on a parchment-lined or cornmeal-dusted baking sheet, cover, and refrigerate. In the morning proceed with the recipe as written, boiling bagels immediately out of the refrigerator.
Recipe From: King Arthur Flour (Martin Philip)
There's nothing quite like a fresh bagel right out of the oven, and Caroline's 2 day labor of love crafting an outstanding bagel was a reminder of the skill that goes into a staple we take for granted. Congrats to her for not shying away from the significant challenge of a homemade bagel - a test that she passed with flying colors!