It is summer on the island.
This means loads of tourists in the down town area.
This also means that you don’t want to go into town if you don’t have to, especially between 9am-9pm.
Around 8 am, my husband noticed we were out of bread. I had done most of the groceries yesterday and clearly forgotten the bread. Now what? I didn’t even shower yet and was still enjoying my morning coffee. No problem for breakfast: we’re a yogurt/granola or cereal/milk kind of family, but no bread=no lunch in my household.
So I made bagels. We have a bread machine, flour, yeast and even still had cream cheese.
Golden, freshly baked bagels…
The bread machine does most of the work and the rest is quite easy. I never liked bagels that much, but I am told that is because I never had a bagel in NYC and only tried the factory bagels.
Still need to get a bagel in NYC, but until then: I like my home-made bagels!
After posting pictures on my Facebook, I got requests for the recipe. So here it goes.
(I’ll give you the recipe for the larger quantity, because who would not want to have a fresh bagel? The recipe book has a recipe for 6 or 9 bagels, but I found that the recipe for 9 bagels can easily make 10, which is much better for my family of 5!)
Recipe from Bread Machine Recipes (Publications International, Ltd.)
For about 10 bagels:
- 1 ½ cup water
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 4 cups (bread) flour
- 2 teaspoons dried yeast
For boiling and baking:
- 3 quarts water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons cornmeal
- 1 egg, beaten
- sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic salt, cinnamon sugar (optional)
Now for the fun part:
- Measure ingredients and place them in the bread maker (except those required for boiling and baking). Program dough cycle setting; press start.
- Turn out dough on floured surface: knead briefly. Cut into 10 equal pieces. Shape into balls. Let rest 10 minutes. Poke thumb through center of each ball to make a hole. Stretch into bagel shape (It actually says in the recipe book: Stretch into doughnut shapes. But hey, we are going to make bagels, right!). Let rise, uncovered for about 15 minutes or until puffy. Do not overproof bagels (I have no idea what that means: I have forgotten about them and boiled them 45 minutes later, so not too much worries here!).
The boiling process
- For boiling and baking, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bring water and sugar to a boil in large, deep skillet or wok. Spray 2 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray; sprinkle with cornmeal. (I use my Pampered chef pizza stones; I love my stone ware! No need to spray with some kind of grease from a can, just dap a bit of olive oil, sprinkle cornmeal and all is good in the world of baking.) Carefully lower bagels, 3 at the time (but this, of course, depends on the size of and your bagels, and your skillet: I have done 5 at the time), into boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes, turning often (I only turn once; about 2-3 minutes on one side, flip and another 2 minutes on the back side.) Remove bagels, using slotted spoon; drain briefly on paper towels. Place bagels 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds (or any other topping), if desired. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from baking sheets; cool on wire rack.
Slotted spoon, essentieel for this recipe!
There you have it: home-made bagels! Really quite simple, just a bit of a process. But I am so glad I found this recipe, because I never knew you had to boil them before baking, and I absolutely love the taste (and smell!) of these freshly baked bagels.
Boiled, brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with poppy seeds and garlic salt
We’ve tried variations with the toppings, but sesame seeds are still my favorite; my husband and oldest son love the poppy seed and the two youngest prefer the garlic salt. Some good cheese is great to, but harder to clean the baking sheets!
These bagels taste best fresh, and will get stale quick. However, we have discovered that if you wrap the ‘old’ bagel in a damp paper towel and microwave it a few seconds, the bagel taste almost good as new.
Fresh out the oven!
Almost, because you can’t beat the ‘out-of-the-oven-fresh-bagel’.
Ever.
Eet smakelijk!
