How to make Bagels at Home

Beigel Bake - this is where I started my love affair with Bagels!  I have to thank an old girlfriend for taking me there in London's Brick Lane.  This is a shop once found never forgotten. On a late Saturday night you could buy a Sunday paper and go home with a lovely warm salt beef bagel and tea. You would find all manner of people queuing for their bagels and bread at this 24 hour shop. I used to drive over to this shop from Crouch End in the evening and return with a few dozen of their freshly baked Jewish style bagels.

London is no longer my home and I have to satisfy my desire with Costco and their 12 bagels for £2.99. Not as much fun as Brick Lane but they do a passable Jewish bagel and thats the important thing. Their plain is my favourite although Sesame seed is a close second!

However, I wanted to be able to bake at home as I do for sourdough, ciabatta and focaccia. There are numerous recipes but the one I've settled on is based on one from Chocolate and Zucchini which itself is based on Peter Reinhart.

These recipes use a sponge and a dough and require an overnight prove to develop flavour. This is great for me s it spreads the workload over two days. These ingredients will make 8 medium bagels.

Sponge
180g flour
1/4 tsp dried yeast
220g water
140g Levian

Dough
240g white flour
6g salt
1/4 tsp dried yeast
1 1/2 tsp malt powder

Combine sponge ingredients and let stand for two hours.

Add Sponge and all dough ingredients to a stand mixer bowl. Stir to combine.

Run the mixer for about 8 mins at a medium speed.

The dough should be smooth and pliable but not dry.

Move contents to a bowl, cover with cling film and let stand for one hour.

Put into fridge overnight.

Remove the dough from the fridge and leave for one hour to get to room temperature.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces (approximately 100g each).

Shape each portion into balls and make hole in middle of each, Slightly flatten with palm of hand to a recognisable 'bagel' shape.

Rest on oiled parchment for 15 minutes. Heat oven to 260C.

Add 1 Tbs baking soda to a large pan of boiling water. Cook each bagel for one minute each side (I do two or three bagels at a time).

Rest boiled bagels on separate oiled parchment.

At this point you can dip the bagels in any seeds if you are coating them (e.g., poppy or sesame).

Place bagels on baking sheet and cook in oven for 5 minutes. Turn oven down to 230C and bake for another 5 minutes.

Cool for 30 minutes and then they are ready to eat.

The crumb structure should be similar to sourdough bread with a chewy texture.

There are plenty of bagel recipes out there such as this Jewish one, another New York style one,  a summary of different ones,  and finally one from the fabulous FreshLoaf site.