Baking my own bagels from scratch: could I do it? An internet search found some rave reviews for “Jo Goldenberg’s Parisian Bagels” on Melinda Lee’s cooking website. As a child, I loved bagels, but over the past few years I’ve found that the bagels I have bought are becoming less like the bagels I used to love, and more like, well, plain old dinner rolls. I just noticed that I’ve rarely bought bagels recently, because there’s not much difference between them and a thick slice of bread. So it was time to make my own. This is my first attempt, so if I’m doing anything wrong then let me know. However, I might add that I am really pleased with the final results regardless of any mistakes I might have made.
1. The first step to making these bagels was, of course, to measure out the dry ingredients. According to the website, that would be:
3 1/2 cups (approximately), bread flour [or substitute all-purpose flour]
2 packages, dry yeast
3 tablespoons, sugar
1 tablespoon, salt
Now, I don’t have bread flour, so I used all-purpose flour. I also buy yeast in bulk, so I normally use 2 ½ teaspoons of yeast for each “package” that recipes normally call for. The recipe also said to start with 3 cups of flour in the mixer bowl and keep the other half cup in reserve later.
2. Next mix all the dry ingredients together. Some people use a sifter. I just use my fingers.
3. The recipe then called for
1 1/2 cups, hot water (120-130 degrees)
I just put a bowl in the microwave and checked the temperature.
4. Next was to use the flat paddle attachment of my mixer to beat for two minutes. I only had to beat for a little over a minute before everything came together.
5. I attached the dough hook to the mixer and kneaded for the ten minutes the recipe called for. I love my mixer: I just checked the dough occasionally to see if it was sticky. No hand-kneading for me, thank you. After ten minutes and about three extra tablespoons of flour the dough was ready.
6. I put the dough into an oiled bowl, covered tightly with plastic wrap and placed it in a turned-off microwave oven to keep out cold air. You would not have to keep it in the microwave, but I live in a cold climate so I normally let bread rise in the microwave.
7. After an hour the dough had doubled in size.
8. I took the dough out onto a floured surface and patted it down to remove the air bubbles.
9. Then I cut divided the dough into 8 balls.
10. I let the dough rest for a few minutes then I flattened each ball with the palm of my hand.
11. I used my thumb to make a hole in each flattened piece of dough and formed them into a bagel shape.
12. Then I covered the raw bagels with waxed paper and let them rest for 10 minutes.
13. Next was to bring three quarts of water to a boil. The recipe called for adding malt syrup or sugar to the water. I decided to add a tablespoon of honey instead.
14. I added the bagels to the water, two at a time. The recipe called for leaving the bagels in the water for one minute, but I liked the way the bagels “puffed up” when I left them in the water for a couple of minutes, so I just left them there until they had expanded a bit. This would probably make Jo Goldenberg scream, but these are my bagels.
15. I covered two baking sheets with vegetable shortening. The recipe called for then covering the sheets with corn meal. I cannot use corn meal: it makes too much smoke from my convection over, and I hate having the alarm ring when I’m trying to bake, so I just dipped the bottom of each bagel into a bowl containing a beaten egg white and a tablespoon of water…
16. … and then onto a plate of corn meal. This way the corn meal kept the bagels from sticking to the sheet, but there was not so much corn meal that the oven spewed smoke.
17. Now, onto the baking sheet. I brushed some of the egg white and water mixture on top of each bagel, then sprinkled the tops with sesame seeds.
18. Finally, all eight bagels were done, and put into an oven preheated to 375 degrees.
19. After about fifteen minutes I took the bagels out and turned them over, also alternating the cookie sheets.
20. I am always kind of surprised when recipes turn out well the first time, and this recipe definitely surprised me!
Unbelievable: I had made bagels! Real, tasty bagels. I have not had good bagels in years, and here I had made them myself. What can I say: Jo Goldenberg knows what she’s doing.
[...] can make sesame-seed bagels for about twenty cents each, which comes to less than half the cost of a stale “bagel” at my [...]
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