Bagels

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Ingredients

Makes 6 Bagels. Start the night before you want to bake for best flavor!

Dough:

  • 230g warm water (85-100 degrees) (1 cup + 2 tbsp)
  • 14g brown sugar (4 tsp)
  • 4g instant yeast (1 tsp)
  • 360g bread flour (3 or 3 1/3 cup)
  • 8g salt (2 tsp)

Morning of:

  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • .5 cup Corn meal

Topping options:

  • Sesame seeds
  • Poppy seed
  • Maldon Salt
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion powder
  • Cinnamon Sugar

Instructions

The night before you want to have the bagels:

  1. Mix in a cup, and stir until dissolved
  • 230g warm water (85-90 °F)
  • 14g brown sugar
  1. Stir in and let it sit for 5 or so mins until it’s bubbly/active/smells bready
  • 4g instant yeast
  1. In a different bowl (or standing mixer with bread hook) mix for 10 seconds
  • 360g bread flour
  • 8g salt
  1. Dump in the water/sugar/yeast and knead or use bread hook for 5 minutes. Dough should be smooth, the smallest amount sticky so it will stick to itself when you shape it, but not stick to your hands
  2. Divide dough into 6 balls 100g each
  3. Lightly flour each ball (if too sticky) and roll it between your hands until it’s a 9" log shape
  4. Wrap the dough around your hand to make a closed circle, overlap the ends about 1" and squish them together so you get a bagel shape
    • If it’s too stick to roll, lightly add flour
    • If it isn’t sticking to itself, lightly wet your hands to make it stickier
    • Make sure the hole is like 1.5"-2" diameter since it’ll get smaller as they rise
    • Photo from the internet
  5. Lightly flour a tray, place bagels on it, lightly flour the tops, and cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge overnight 8-16hrs.

Next morning: The first three steps you can get going at the same time.

  1. Take bagels out of fridge, and let them proof for 20 minutes on the counter, they should get noticeably bigger
  2. Meanwhile, start a 4qt pot of water boiling with
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  1. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425
  2. Fill a shallow bowl that’s large enough to fit a bagel with corn meal
  3. Pull out a colander and place it over a large bowl for excess hot water
  4. After bagels proofed for 20minutes, and water is boiling, take one bagel at a time and:
    1. Drop bagel in boiling water for about 10 seconds - it should float, if not, let the rest proof for a bit longer
    2. Flip it over, boil for 10 seconds
    3. Scoop out and place in a colander for a few seconds to let excess water drip off
    4. Place bagel in bowl with corn meal, then place bagel on a baking sheet. Leave some space since they get a little bigger in the oven
    5. While the bagel is still wet on top - throw on toppings: poppy/sesame/salt/garlic powder/onion powder, or whatever you want! Since he’s
  5. After all bagels are on the tray, put it in the oven for 10 minutes
  6. At 10 minutes, rotate the tray or rotate top/bottom rack if you are doing multiple trays at a time, and bake for another 10-12 or so minutes until lightly browned
  7. Let cool on a rack for a few minutes before eating!

Notes

  • When making a full 12 bagels, I’ll usually put two the trays in the oven at the same time, but not usually do any more than 2 trays at once even if they could fit in the oven.
  • Sometimes too much excess corn meal on the pan will result in smoking, so dropping
  • Bagel mix-ins:
    • If you use whole wheat flour, then you’ll need to increase the amount of water or they’ll be too dry
    • If you want to mix an egg bagel you’ll have to decrease the amount of water
  • Bagels can be made with sourdough, replacing 50g of water and 50g of flour with 100g of fed starter. Instead of leaving the bagels in the fridge overnight you will likely need to leave them on the counter (or proof out of the fridge earlier in the day and then shape and fridge overnight).