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| Traditional Bagels |
Making Bagels!
For a very long time, I have been wanting to make some bagels, and this week-end I just thought why not!? The only time I had a "real bagel" was when I was on holiday in Montreal, Canada, where my partner and I had some fresh bagels from a bakery which only made bagels. They were delicious, and none of the store-bought things could match that taste. Nowadays it seems all bagels you buy in a story are sweet, when really, they shouldn't be!
I was hoping that, by making them myself, I could get closer to that taste.
My first challenge was to find a good recipe. There is a vast set of recipes online, which all looked delicious. Unfortunately, I had to eliminate a large majority of them as they required some diastatic malt powder, which I was unable to find in any store in my area, or in any UK-based website!!! So, in trying to find a recipe that did not use diastatic malt powder, I came to find an interesting recipe in a specialised blog, "The Fresh Loaf", which suggested you could use Malt Syrup instead of diastatic malt powder.
It was necessary to make a few changes, as there was no bulk fermentation time in the recipe and the technique for making bagels was simply not traditional enough for me!
So here is what I ended up using... with bakers percentages and grams...
RECIPE
Ingredients:
Flour 100% 500gr
Water 60% 300gr
Salt 2% 1 tsp
Malt Syrup 5% 25gr
Instant yeast 0.6% 1 1/3 tsp
Yield: 8 100gram (~4 ounce) bagels
(Recipe adapted from http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/bagels)
The night before, mix all ingredients (including the malt syrup) together until incorporated. If using a mixer, mix in first speed for 3 minutes, then in second speed for around 5 minutes. If kneading by hand, mix until incorporated, let rest for 30 minutes, and then knead until it becomes a tough, strong, well developed dough.
The dough will be quite tough, because of the low water content but should still be easy to play with! Once the dough is to your liking, let it ferment for 1 hour (more if the room is cold!) in a bowl covered with cling film.
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| Just out of the mixer. A tough, strong, well developed dough |
After letting the dough rest for 1 hour at room temperature, separate into 100gram (~4 ounce) pieces. You should have about 8 pieces in total.
To shape into a bagel, roll into a long cylinder (longer than you think!) then tamper the edges (press them a bit so they are sealed). Then take the cylinders, wrap it around the widest part of your hand (at the knuckles) and simply stick the two edges to each other with some overlap. Then, keeping the bagels around your hand, just roll it gently on the work surface to seal the two edges together. Now just pull it out of your hand, you should have a nicely shaped bagel!
:Line a tray (or two) with parchment paper. Spray the paper with some oil or dust with cornmeal or semolina (I tried both and my opinion is that oil is better). Place shaped bagels on tray keeping an inch at least between them.
When you're done, place the trays in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight.
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| Before going into the refrigerator overnight |
So, boil water in a large saucepan. Then, add enough malt syrup into the water until the water looks like weak tea. Make sure its still boiling after this.
Now, just dump the bagels into the saucepan (I did them two by two as this was all the pan could take!). Boil them for 20 seconds or until it floats. Mine were floating from the start (could be because they had too much gas in them), so I just left them in there for 20-25 seconds.
When finished, just fetch the bagels out and place them back onto the tray. If you want some seeds on your bagels (I used sesame and poppy seeds) then this is the time to put them on (while they're still wet and warm!).
Once you've boiled the bagels and sprinkled the seeds, let them rest for a couple of minutes. Then place in the preheated oven and bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden!
Once they are baked, place them on a cooling rack. I think these bagels are best when lukewarm, so don't wait for them to cool down completely! Enjoy with creamcheese or butter or just plain!
I haven't tried freezing them (because they were all gone the same day they were made!) but I don't see any reason why they can't be frozen in a zipped freezer bag.
Thanks for reading!
