Bagels

We love bagels, but they’re one of those rare treats in our home. It’s probably a good thing that we don’t have a Noah’s Bagels in our town. 🙂 But the bagel-bug bit me recently, so I decided to make them myself! Oh boy. Delicious. And while they may have been a little bit time-consuming, they were super simple and well worth it. I made a small batch, and did a few plain, a few poppyseed, and a few cinnamon-sugar. I highly recommend trying these. They are chewy and spot-on. Slather on the cream cheese and you’ve got yourself the most mouth-watering bagel treats you could imagine.

BAGELS

Ingredients

• 4 cups bread flour
• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1.25 – 1.5 cups warm water
• poppy seeds, sesame seeds or any other toppings

Directions

1. Combine all the ingredients (except toppings) in a bowl. You want to incorporate all the flour, but your dough will be stiff. Only add the water as needed until the flour is incorporated.
2. Knead the dough for ten minutes until it is smooth, either in a mixer or by hand.
3. Cut the dough into 8 balls and let it sit, covered, for about 15 minutes. While this is happening, get a large pot of water boiling (enough so that the bagels won’t touch the bottom while being boiled), with a couple tablespoons of baking soda in the water.
4. Take each dough ball and roll it into a foot long snake using your hands. Keeping your hand in the middle of the dough snake and use your other hand to bring the two ends together such that the dough is fully wrapped around your hand. Rotate the dough around so that the part where the two ends come together is under your palm. Press down to make the ends come together. (If this doesn’t work, you can also flatten one end, place the other end in it, and then wrap the dough around it to encase one end of the dough in the other.)
   
5. You should now have eight balls of dough with a circle in them. Let them rest for about 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 while you wait, and grease a cookie sheet  so that the bagels don’t stick to it.
6. Once your water is at a persistent boil, place a few bagels in the water (you don’t want them crowded). Boil on each side for about 1 minute.
   
7. Take the bagels out of the water (use a spatula or something, as they are obviously very hot.) If you are using poppy seed, sesame seed or any other topping, sprinkle some onto the bagel on each side. Alternatively, you can lay some on a plate and press the bagel into it.
8. Once all the bagels have been boiled, place them on the cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes on each side.  If your bagels are too puffy after the first side cooks, flip them over so that the cooked side is pointing up, and flatten them using the head of a spatula.
   
9. Let the bagels cool, and enjoy with cream cheese or your other favorite spreads/toppings.