Come for the recipe; stay for the story!
Video tutorial: here
8 oz warm water (1 cup) (baby bathwater temperature)
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp active dry yeast
15.5 oz flour (3 1/2 cups) (bread or all purpose)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbls honey (and 2 Tbls for boiling later)
For orange chocolate chip bagels- zest of two oranges and 1 cup of chocolate chips
For cheddar Old Bay bagels-1 cup of freshly shredded cheddar cheese, 2 Tbls Old Bay seasoning
1. Put your sugar and yeast into the water and let it rest for about 5 minutes, until it foams.
2. Mix your yeast mixture with the flour, salt, and honey.
3. Knead your dough by hand or allow it to keep mixing with teh dough hook until it passes the windowpane test. (For more info on windowpane test see here or here!) This is a dryer dough so make sure it passes the test! You may think it's ready before it is, just because it feels like a tougher dough.
4. Add your flavor mix ins. (I incorporated mine by kneading them in by hand, and I had to add a pinch of flour to the orange zest ones, due to the extra moisture from the zest.)
5. Let your dough rest until it doubles in size.
6. Once your dough has doubled in size, separate by cutting the dough into either 6 or 8 equal pieces. You can either eyeball it or you can scale it out. (3 oz each for 8 bagels or 4 oz each for 6 bagels. I cut mine to 3 oz so I ended up with 8 slightly smaller bagels. They are more the size of the store bought ones rather than the ones from Dunkin or other places you normally grab your morning bagels from.)
7. Once separate, let your inner child run free! Time to make dough snakes! Take one of your pieces and gently flatten it a bit. Grab the top of the dough (the edge farthest from you) and bring it to the middle and gently press it down. Grab the top again and then bring to the bottom (the edge closest to you) and pinch down so you should have a piece that is both longer and more cylindrical in shape than it was originally. Using the palm/ball of your hands press downward on the dough pushing it back and forth to make a snake. Use those life skills you learned in preschool!) Make sure you are pressing down on the dough as you move it back and forth, rather than stretching it, to prevent the dough from tearing. Finish making snakes with all the pieces. You want them to be long enough to make circle around the middle part of your hand (6-8" or so).
8. Once your snake is made, wrap it around your hand with the end pieces both in your palm. Using the same back and forth motion as above push the dough ends together so they form a closed dough ring.
9. Place all your formed bagels onto a parchment covered sheet tray that has been lightly sprayed with pan spray, and let rest until they are doubled in size.
10. When the bagels are almost done growing, start a pot of water boiling with the 2 Tbls of honey.
11. When the bagels are ready (if you press gently on the bagel it ill hold the imprint of your finger for a few seconds), and the water is boiling, place the bagel into the water, top-side down, boil about 30 seconds and then flip and boil the other side for 30 seconds. Place each bagel back on your baking sheet once it is boiled.
12. Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. They will be golden brown when ready.
I'm sad that bread week is gone, but what better bread to end with than BAGELS?!?! I have thoroughly enjoyed having bagels in my house for breakfast in the morning, just as much as I enjoyed having challah in my house. (I had made two loaves and we just finished the second loaf as French toast for dinner last night. Who doesn't loave a good breakfast for dinner? That was a typo by the way, but it's kinda punny so I'm totally leaving it. No judgement, please! Pastry puns are my fave!)
Bagels are a type of bread most people are familiar with, and I'll be honest, after learning to make donuts in school, I was kind of disappointed that we didn't learn how to make bagels too. That disappointment didn't last long, I found out pretty quickly on my apprenticeship that I would not only learn to make them, but challenge myself each week at work to make them more beautifully than before. I had gotten really good at it too before I moved on to my current job. These were the first bagels I have made in almost two years, so I'm kinda impressed that I still got it! We made just plain ones at the restaurant, but I wanted to come up with something different. Everything bagels are always popular, but you can get them anywhere. I wanted something I couldn't buy in your average bagel joint. So here we are! Two flavors you aren't likely to find just anywhere! You can cut the topping amounts in half and make half your dough one flavor and the other half the other flavor like I did, or you can make just one flavor. And there's always the option to simply keep them plain!
You will notice that there is honey in the boiling water, the reason for that is to help them brown more in the oven. The boiling process is what gives the bagel the chew that sets it apart from other breads, so it is super important!
Now for the nerdy stuff that I love, the brief history of bagels. If you know anything about bagels you know that NYC is basically the Mecca of the American bagel world. But they were around and being enjoyed long before the America as we know it even existed. One source says that there is, "the possibility that they came East to Poland from Germany as part of a migration flow during the 14th century." And goes on to say that the first written record of a bagel type bread is from the 14th century.
If you have learned anything about pastry from me to this point, it should be that the history is never that cut and dry. OF COURSE there is another story that claims the fame, and it I that "the first bagels [date] to the late 17th century in Austria, saying that bagels were invented in 1683 by a Viennese baker trying to pay tribute to the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski. The king had led Austria (and hence Poland as well, since it was part of the empire) in repelling invading Turkish armies. Given that the king was famous for his love of horses, the baker decided to shape his dough into a circle that looked like a stirrup -- or beugel in German."
The same article explains how they eventually became associated with Jewish culture, and unfortunately it involves our Jewish friends getting the short end of the stick, but they overcame the political/religious hatred and the boiling of the bagel was theoretically invented. Because of the Jewish history with bagels, it is easily assumed that the immigration of the bagel coincided with the arrival of Jews seeking better life in New York in the late 1800s. I don't know about you, but I am so thankful that they hare all these delicious breads with us! Where would we be without bagels? (I don't write any of this to downplay the Jewish faith or the overcoming of horrible past treatment!)
Another source notes that the popularity of the bagel among the average American didn't take off right away. It wasn't until years after WWII that Americans began eating this holey bread. The tactic to up the popularity? The Family Circle published a recipe with an hors d'oeuvres idea around the same time that the bagel makers were realizing they can be frozen and shipped across the country! We've seen that before with the pineapple industry, haven't we? Marketing works, and sometimes I'm really thankful for it!
There is obviously a lot to the bagel history. There are bagel typed breads in many other countries, so I'm sure the debate on the first bagel debate runs much deeper than I've even touched on here. But we don't have all day, you've got some bagels to make!
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/the-history-of-bagels-in-america/
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