How Do You Hold A Bagel Back?
You put lox on it.
How’s it going, my bread-thren? Amy’s sourdough twin here, Leah. Let’s get to it: bagels.
That’s right. I made that. In my PBS shirt from Amy.
Bagels are a magnificent breakfast feast: portable, hearty, appropriately filled with gluten and protein for the runner. I run places to offset my love affair with carbohydrates. Yeast has a dedicated space in my heart. I brew beer, and now bread meets beer with my beer barm sourdough starter. These homemade carbs are often out of self-preservation. Last spring I moved to London. I’ve not found decent bagels at Tesco. (That’s my grocery store.) The beer situation in the United Kingdom is abysmal.
Running, beer, and bread are how I sort out a new place, learning its landscape and foodscape, getting lost in Tesco while I try to find baking soda (which they call “bicarbonate of soda”), saying “Cheers!” when someone dodges out of my way on a run, enjoying the inexpensive flours. (Wholemeal wheat flour! Strong flour! Strong brown flour! Rye wholemeal! All 1.5 kg for £1!)
Going places, traveling, and feeling far away has been a theme for me. I love bagels as portable breakfast and their history of being brought to the US via immigrants. They also remind me of my husband’s family. The Bromberg pater familias hunts the best bagels for us every time we visit them in Connecticut. I do believe these bagels meet the high standards of the Bromberg family. They are chewy and fluffy. Their flavor is just tart enough, especially with the sourdough starter.
Bread & love from London,
Leah
Now: reci-please! I’m three batches in with three batches doing their bulk fermentation on my counter right now. It took me awhile to get the hang of this, so listen to my wisdom. This makes 6 bagels. For all the waiting, check out my breakfast playlist on Spotify.
Sourdough bagels: Recipe from our favorite How to Make Sourdough book
Dry mixture:
- 500 g strong, white flour
- (Optional: If you want cinnamon bagels, add 1 tablespoon to dry mixture!)
- 10 g salt
- 20 g white sugar
- 25 g butter
Wet mixture:
- 50 g sourdough starter (I used half barm for fluff, half sourdough for flavor. The barm alone proved too bitter.)
- 200 g warm water
- 1 egg, beaten
- For finishing:
- 1 egg, beaten for wash
- Optional: sesame seeds (or whatevs)
1. For the dry mixture: Combine in your main mixing bowl the flour, salt, sugar, and butter.
2. In another bowl, combine the starter and water. Mix in the egg. #shortcuts #fewerdirtybowls
3. Add wet mixture to the dry mixture. Combine with yo’ hands until it’s all together. (Or use your stand mixer -- huzzah!)
4. Cover that bowl, and go chill out for 10 minutes.
5. Now knead the mixture 10 times: Pounding it out then folding it over = 1 knead. Then let it rest for 10 more minutes.
6. Do Step 5 three more times.
7. Cover the dough, and let it be for 8 to 12 hours. Maybe go to bed. Or to work.
8. Good morning/evening! How was your day? How did you sleep? De-gas that dough by poking it and listening to that satisfying sound of CO2 exiting.
9. Free the dough from the bowl! Release it onto your lightly floured counter so you can divide your dough into six equal parts.
10. V. important: Make the dough into the most perfect balls ever. Smooth on the outside. Otherwise your bagels will cook unevenly as well as being ugly. Ugly we can deal with. Odd patches of doughiness, no.
11. Cover those perfect dough balls, and leave for 10 minutes.
12. Meanwhile get your biggest pot ever. Fill with water and a bit of salt, and boil it! Or wait to do this until Step 14 depending on your pot.
13. Now we make beautiful bagel rings! Press a hole into the center of the ball, then gently rotate them around until you have what seems like could one day be a bagel. Obviously you want to do this to all six.
14. And we wait for 15 more minutes. UGH. (And start boiling water if you haven’t!)
15. Preheat that oven to 500 F (or 250 C because that’s my life now). Put a roasting pan at the bottom for later.
16. Make sure that water is boiling. New fact: YOU BOIL BAGELS. I had no idea. Drop 2 or 3 bagels into the water. Make sure they have a bit of room to roam around. They will sink to the bottom, so use some tongs to make sure they don’t stick.
17. Let them boil for 5 minutes on this side. They’re going to expand and start to float. It really is like magic.
18. Flip them over to boil for 5 more minutes on the other side.
19. Put some paper out for them to sit on once they’re done boiling. Let them hang out until everyone is boiled.
20. Brush on the egg wash, then carefully sprinkle preferred toppings on like sesame or poppy seeds. Careful not to do too much egg wash… otherwise your bagels might smell like eggs when you toast them. Yikes.
21. Transfer to a baking sheet or pizza stone. Stick them in the oven!
22. Pour 1 cup of water into that roasting pan. It makes the bagels crusty!
23. Bake 15 minutes until golden brown, then let them cool on a wire rack.
24. Celebrate your hard work! Enjoy a portable breakfast!
