What do you think? Bagel Masters, or what?!
January 8, 2013
Absolutely BEST when FRESH :)
Bagel Recipe:
(1 dl = little less than a half cup, 0.42 cups)
Ingredients:
5 dl finger warm water
25 g live yeast ( about 2 tbsp dry yeast)
2 1/2 tsp salt
6-7 tbsp honey
some baking powder if you're using non-self rising flour
6-9 dl self rising flour (the finest ground you can find)
3 tbsp sugar for boiling water
1-2 eggs for penciling
Various seeds and oats for bagel toppings
Directions:
Crumble yeast into finger warm water and stir to wake them up. Stir in and dissolve salt, baking powder if needed, and honey into this mix. Add in as much flower as necessary to make a fluffy and a teensy bit sticky dough, maybe about 6-9 dl should work. Work with dough and then cover with baking towel and let rise for one hour (make sure its warm and there are no drafts). After the first rise, take the dough and make many bagel shapes. Set these shapes on flowered parchment paper and cover with baking towels to rise for 30 minutes.
Set water to boil in a wide pot (half-filled) while bagel shapes are rising. Add the sugar to the water as well. After the second rise is finished, uncover 3-4 bagels -or as many will fit floating in the pot- and coax them gently off the parchment paper and into the boiling water. Let them float for about 3 minutes on each side (flip with spatula). They WILL grow in size so take this into account. Take them out of the water and place them on a towel or drying rack to dry off (maybe 6 minutes to dry off). Preheat oven to 175 deg C (350 deg F).
Put bagels on parchment paper. Whisk the eggs and pencil the relatively dry bagels with them. Sprinkle toppings over the bagels and place on baking sheet. Bake bagels for 20-25 minutes or until they obtain a nice golden tinge :)
Enjoy the absolutely fresh and still warm bagels by cutting them in half and putting Kerigold's salted butter on them (from Trader Joe's)!!! You can't go wrong! Also, make sure to store the bagels after they have cooled off in a sealed plastic bag for no more than 2-3 days. Freeze them directly if you'll eat them any time after that. Just toast them after letting them defrost when you'd like to eat them again.
