You say Bag-ull, I say Bay-gull

Here's my Operation Fear Liberation (OFL) snapshot for the second week of February. Once again, I've forced myself to do something new. 

Week #6: Make homemade bagels!

Why it’s on my list: About six months or so back, a friend of mine posted a link to a bagel recipe on Facebook. Now this friend is one half of a culinary-inclined duo, who often post about their edible masterpieces in the kitchen. I don’t even think about making most of the stuff they make, because I know that I am no Nigella Lawson. That said, I am often inspired by my culinary amigos, and I actually do cook and bake from time to time. And I also really like bagels; I went through a bit of an obsession with Eltana’s wood-fired bagels last spring. So I thought, “I should totally learn to make bagels!”

An Eltana bagel that I once loved. And ate.

Hang Ups: I’ve eaten so many bad bagels or sub-par bagels over the years, and, if you didn’t figure this out from my popcorn post, I don’t much like #KitchenFails. And the recipe is extremely detailed and requires two days of preparation. It looks complicated. Plus I needed to get barley malt syrup. Where the heck does one get barley malt syrup? Would this require a trip to the home-brew store?

Conquered: February 4-5, 2012

Where: Shoreline, WA, at the I. family’s house

Oh, I know that stuff!

Hang Ups: While keeping my friend CWI and daughter S company while husband and father TI was away, I convinced my friend CWI that making bagels would be a great little weekend project. The internet told me that barley malt syrup is often available in grocery stores and almost definitely at Whole Pay Check, so I swung by the store on my way up to Shoreline on Saturday afternoon. I also nabbed unbleached bread flour and a packet of instant yeast. The only other ingredients for this recipe are kosher salt, water, baking soda, and, should you desire them, toppings and a little egg white rinse to help them stick.

(For those of you interested in trying this out at home, you will also need a stand mixer with a dough hook [or a big mixing bowl, wood spoon, and major arm muscles], a second mixing bowl for the wet ingredients, measuring cups and spoons, parchment paper, cooking spray, a large baking sheet, plastic wrap, a stock pot that holds at least 2-3 quarts and is at least 4 inches deep, and a slotted spoon. Tiny little bowls for toppings and a basting brush for the egg white wash are also helpful.) 

The Experience: While C gave S her evening bath, I mixed the water, salt, barley malt syrup, and yeast in the mixer’s bowl. Then I measured out the flour with a 1/2 cup measuring cup (I do this into a separate bowl because I always, always, always lose count of how many cups I’ve dumped in. And wouldn’t you know it? I did it again). Once I got the flour sorted out, I gradually dumped it all into the mixer with the wet ingredients and let the dough hook mix it up according to the recipe instructions. By the time S was done with her bath and came to hug me goodnight, I’d set the ball of dough aside to rise for an hour in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap. 

Dough ball!  It didn't that much, FYI.

C and I decided to practice rolling bagels with some of S’s play-dough while we waited for the bagel dough to rise. That was unsurprisingly easy. 

A pliable, totally unappetizing purple play-dough bagel.

Then we rolled the real dough into eight equal-sized balls and then attempted to roll them out into long cylindrical pieces that we could form into circles. This was not so easy. 

I got cramps in my palms rolling this bagel.  Serious.

The error was definitely in my inclination to make the dough into balls first instead of just cutting the dough into eight equal-sized pieces and rolling them directly into long pieces. Yeast dough definitely loses pliability with every manipulation. Still, we managed to get them into O shapes on the oily parchment paper-covered cookie sheet, covered them with plastic wrap, and shoved them into the fridge overnight.

Eight!  Eight raw bagels!

On Sunday morning, we yoinked the bagels out of the fridge an hour or so before baking. Once we did the float test to make sure they were ready to cook, we turned on the oven and made the brine in the stockpot. We boiled the bagels for a minute on each side, and then returned them to the cookie sheet (which we also had dusted with cornmeal).

Boiling bagels!

After we basted the bagels with our egg white wash, we added toppings. I love coarse sea salt on bagels, so I topped one with just that. We put sesame seeds and rehydrated dehydrated onion on others and left one or two plain for little S. Then we popped them in the oven to bake (16-20 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point). 

The Verdict: Oh my gawd! Look at these beautiful homemade bagels!

My precious.

And they tasted amazing too! Yes, it takes two days, and yes, it is a slightly elaborate, time sensitive process. Yes, you’ll wash a good deal of dishes. But this really wasn’t that hard. You do not have to be a culinary god or goddess to make these.  And they’re really inexpensive when compared with the $2 price tag for each bagel at Eltana’s. (That $6.50 jar of barley malt syrup should see me through at least 100 bagels.) Since C and my bagel-making weekend, I have already made my second batch of bagels, and I expect to make them again and again. Total success!