Homemade bagels. I don't know if they're better than Baglesky's Deli's bagels, but they beat normal bagels. They're very hard to make, if you need to know.
So are donuts. I think any bread with holes is difficult to make, though why this difficulty exists I am unsure...however...donuts are much easier to form than bagels. You cut donuts out with a cookie cutter then prance around in a circle singing about love, joy, and peace, but bagels are formed in futility and frustration, and afterward, you feel like you've just left flowers at a loved one's grave site. The only difference is that, with bagels, you get to slice the "loved one" in half and eat the "loved one," so it's a little more palliating.
Onto the recipe.
Bagels (summary of instructions at bottom of post)
Oven 375°
4¼ to 4¾ cups all-purpose flour (adding half whole wheat adds some flavor)
2 packages active dry yeast (or 4½ teaspoons)
1½ cups warm water (110° to 115°)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Well, first things first. Alton Brown once made waffles (waffles by Alton: basic and chocolate) out of half white flour and half wheat flour. Turns out, this adds some flavor, without adding too much "flavor." I agree. So, head on over to your wheat berry drawer...
And get yourself some wheat berries. I usually grind four cups at a time. You get 50% more than the wheat berry measure by volume...so you need to grind about a cup and a half.
I love the sound of the grinder. It sounds like a jet aircraft taking off. And when
And there's your flour. Remember, using half whole wheat is optional. White flour doesn't need to be ground, so it's faster that way.Now, add 1½ cups of it (I actually prefer to use white flour for this part) to your mixing bowl, whatever that may be. I'm lucky enough to possess a Kichenaid stand mixer. They are like the Master Sword...they're the things of legend, very powerful, make sounds when you pick them up, and once you acquire one, you can stay Ganondorf and slay Ganon with it, and you'll never need another. They're something you'd find near a caravan, buried under the desert...but I digress.
OK, so you've added your 1½ cups of flour. Add 4½ teaspoons (or two packages) active dry yeast, and mix it all about. Note I'm using my Unofficial (homemade) Samus Aran Measuring Spoons. They're really losing their bind-ring luster. But they're still peculiar.
Next, combine your cup and a half of warm water, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tablespoon salt. Do NOT combine them if they're someone else's. In that case, go give them back and either ask to use them or use your own...you know, that's why the "borrow a cup of sugar" line exists, because people actually do that. You...thief.
Pour this into the yeast and flour.
And mix it all about at high speed for two minutes, with the typical introductory slow mixing period so that the flour doesn't fly up and successfully murder you. (That's what it's trying to do, by the way. No ifs, ands, or buts, its goal is to choke you to death.) There is not any yeast-in-warm-water process...you just add the water/sugar/salt to the flour/yeast. I'm unsure why it's done this way. Don't overbeat.
Yuck. It looks like flour and wa...oh, never mind. Now add about 2½ more cups flour (½ white, 2 cups wheat, if you're going 50/50); if you're kneading by hand, mix in as much as you can with a spoon, then knead the rest in. If you'll be kneading with a machine, go ahead and add the entire amount- and switch to your kneading attachment/beater/hook(s). I seriously doubt 2½ cups will be too much.
You'll most likely need more, so continue to add flour past the 2½ cups until it's moderately stiff (the bagels have to keep their shape), then knead until it's good and kneaded up. The book says 6-8 minutes, and mixers can take more or less time, so do what you do, you human, you, and adapt. And compensate, you inherently anthropomorphic being, you.
Now let that very not-bagel-looking lump rest, covered, for 10 minutes. This lets the gluten relax. Or...that's what the experts (and my fingers) tell me.
Hey! It's variation time! I love that word because the first part is "Varia." There are a lot of varia-tions for this recipe, but they all suck. You can cover them with salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or lightly salted and sautéed finely-diced onions...but my favorite is a way the book excluded but my granny suggested and which does not suck: cinnamon raisin!
Here, I take half of the dough and make it cinnamon raisin. I am working with half of the batch, so I use a half of a ¾ cup of raisins and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. So, if you're going to make the whole batch cinnamon raisin, go ahead and add the full ¾ cups of raisins and 2 tablespoons cinnamon. If you dislike cinnamon raisin bagels, you may still like these. I dislike cinnamon raisin bagels, and I actually prefer these; I'm living proof.Now for the forming. Divide the dough into 10 (large bagels) or 12 (medium bagels) pieces. You'll knead (bread humor, you wouldn't understand) to form them. They have to be round; they'll hold the shape you form them in for the entire process.
Develop your own method; I haven't even perfected mine yet, except that it's best to poke a hole in a ball than to make a rope then join it together. But, you can see my method in the following picture I took with my camera in my mouth. Yes.
Ain't it(sic) so pretty?Now, bring some water (with 1 tablespoon sugar) to a boil. I used the 12" Lodge (our widest- uh, beside the 4-gallon stock pot, but that doesn't count) for this.
Boil the bagels for about 3 minutes on each side at a medium boil, then dry them off somehow. I use a towel. Then, put them on a baking sheet. The baking sheet I used is as big as an entire oven rack (it really is- it's wide enough to sit in the rack grooves on the side of the oven), so if you're using a smaller one, I don't know how you'll manage. Mayhaps two pans. Here they are, boiled. I reformed a few of them since the last picture.
I'll tell you the truth. The recipe calls for you to broil the bagels after letting them rise for 20 minutes, then boil them, then bake them. When we broiled them first, they were horrible. By chance, I discovered that boiling them and skipping the broil stage did wonders. I went from "Eww, these are nasty" to "Hey! These are actual bagels!"
Maybe I'm wrong. Irregardless (doesn't that word annoy you?), skipping the broil stage works. I coat them in egg wash, but the recipe doesn't say to. What can I say, I like the egg wash finish. They're done, humble fools!
Yep, it's about a two hour process. But it's worth it.Kind of. I mean, you can't get good cinnamon raisin bagels, and the level of customization is great. You can make really quite large bagels. Where can you buy THIS in a store?
Nowh Ere's Market, that's where. Now here's the recipe.Bagels
Oven 375°
4¼ to 4¾ cups all-purpose flour (adding half whole wheat adds some flavor)
2 packages active dry yeast (or 4½ teaspoons)
1½ cups warm water (110° to 115°)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
In a large bowl combine 1½ cups of the flour and the yeast; if using half whole wheat, this addition should be white. Combine warm water, the 3 tablespoons sugar, and salt. Pour over flour mixture. Beat at low speed of electric mixer 30 seconds, scraping bowl. Beat 2 minutes at high speed. Stir in as much remaining flour as you can mix with a spoon.
Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. (If you have a stand mixer or kneading beaters, skip this step but watch the kneading time.) Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Cover; let rest 10 minutes.
Cut into 10 or 12 portions; shape each into a smooth ball. Punch a hole in the center of each. Pull gently to make a 1 to 1½ inch hole. Place on a greased baking sheet. Cover; let rise 20 minutes.
Um, makes 10 to 12.
VARIATION (which lots of people prefer to the normal bagels): Cinnamon Raisin: add ¾ of a cup of raisins and 2 tablespoons cinnamon. I don't like cinnamon raisin bagels, but I like this variation a lot.
Other variations: Poppy/Onion/Sesame Seed/Salt: Figure it out on your own. Really. It's simple. Salt is a neat variation, though...who would have thought? Anyway, I'm off, humble fools.
No comments:
Post a Comment