BAGELS!
Oh yes we have bagels in the home! They are very funny looking though aren't they? And shouldn't there be 10 of them? Well yes, thank you for pointing that out there should be 10 but 2 look like crescent moons and we snacked on those.
So why bagels? Well a couple reasons the first was I was going stir crazy being home sick. Peter and the girls went out but I still was not well enough to venture out into the world (don't worry I washed my hands a LOT while cooking and thankfully I'm over my coughing fits so no worries there). So here I am with lots of time and this cookbook I got from the library a couple weeks ago called,
The Ultimate Bread Machine Cookbook by Tom Lacalamita.
I do recommend the book so far though this is the only recipe I've been able to try out of it and it has worked out well for the taste.
Now I'm not going to go through all the nitty gritty of when to pull out the dough and all that. Basically I'd suggest reading your bread machine's manual or googling it online. It is very possible to do this by hand and wouldn't be any harder than making any other kind of yeast bread at home.
I actually have a bread machine at home and while trying to prepare for this over the last few days I found out a few things that I never really bothered to pay attention to. 1. My bread maker can make jam? Who would have thunk it. 2. My bread maker has a bagel dough option!
Now what I made is egg bagels because we haven't been able to find those in the store for over a year and Peter really loves egg bagels.
Egg Bagels
1-3/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
3 Cups Bread Flour
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Brown Sugar
3/4 Cup Plus 1 TBS Water
1 Large Egg
My Notes:
- Makes approx. 10 bagels about 2-3/8 oz of dough per each.
- I would suggest weighing dough so you get about the same size bagels and they cook evenly.
- Make sure all ingredients are at room temp. this includes the egg.
- Only difference between an egg bagel and a normal bagel is quite literally the egg. Omit that and you get plain bagels.
- The recipe called for Dark Brown Sugar for everything I used Light Brown Sugar because that is what I had and it still came out good so use what you have.
- Watch the mixing process if need be use a spatula or wooden spoon and move excess flour out of the corners of the bread machine. It will seriously look like there isn't enough water to get everything worked together but there actually is!
Now the recipe says to work dough on cornmeal dusted surface. This is fine and to dust your hands with it is fine too. It helps it from not sticking though just like using flour (which I would guess you could also use very lightly though) it will dry out the dough some but not horrifically. I used white cornmeal but either would be fine.
You can either take your piece of dough and roll it out between your hands or on a surface and then loop it back together but my experience with that is make sure your ends are well kneaded together otherwise you run the risk of them breaking open and you get the crescent moon shape. The other option which I found is a little interesting but by no means wrong is to work your dough together and then work your thumbs through the middle and stretch out the dough slowly working it. Then twist the dough around so the inner part is more towards the outer this doesn't need to be perfect. The good thing about this option, although I found it awkward to do, is that you run a lot less risk of the bagel making weird half shapes.
- Cover worked bagels with towel or plastic wrap and keep in a warm area for 15-30 minutes until bagels have rose again. People say 'doubled in size' but I've never quite considered dough to ever 'double'.
During this time you want to take 3 quarts of water with 1 tablespoon of Brown Sugar (dark or light) and set it to boil and preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Once water is boiling and bagel dough is ready you want to take only about 3 bagels at a time and put them into the boiling water.
- Be careful not to press, squish, or pinch the bagels at this point.
Boil for 3 minutes turning the bagels periodically.
Using a slotted spoon remove the bagels at the end of the time and then place on wire rack so they can drop off any excess water. Should only need to sit up there for about a minute.
- Dusted my bagels with cornmeal though not necessary.
The recipe says to put the bagels on a cornmeal dusted baking pan. I found out that the cornmeal was burning, the bagels were sticking and it because a fiasco! Grease your baking pan! I just took some spray vegetable oil and coated the pan real quick. You could probably very easily use shortening if you prefer.
Bake bagels in a 425 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes, turn bagels over and bake another 10 minutes and then cool on wire rack.
These were very good when first out of the oven no butter or anything! But they are also very good this Sunday morning, sliced, toasted and with a bit of butter.
Now if you make egg bagels remember that they MUST be refrigerated! These are not the type of bagels you leave in your countertop bread box!
