The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Bagels - or thank you Jeffrey Hamelman

varda's picture
varda

Bagels - or thank you Jeffrey Hamelman

Sometimes baking bread seems to be about the challenge and developing the skills and trying new things and so forth.   And sometimes it is all about making what you want to eat.   When I started bread-making in earnest in January, I suddenly lost my taste for the supermarket bagels I'd been eating happily for several years.   Since there is no good bagel place in my immediate area, I simply stopped eating bagels.  But then many of you just kept posting and posting and posting your various bagel bakes, and I couldn't stand it anymore.   So I decided to try Hamelman's approach, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was it relatively simple, but geez, it tastes like the bagels that I used to eat way back in the day, when a New York baker moved to St. Louis, got in a taxi cab and told the driver to take him to the Jewish section of town.   This was back in the sixties, and such a thing had not been seen in St. Louis before.   My father used to come home with dozens and dozens of bagels, and somehow we managed to eat them all.   Usually when I make something, it doesn't come out just how I like it, and I fiddle and fiddle or switch approaches a half dozen or so times, and possibly make something better over time, and possibly not.   But unless someone has a compelling argument that their bagel formula is better than Hamelman's I'm just going to stick with it, and focus on learning how to shape better.   Thanks for all the inspiration to you bagel bakers out there.   Now I have what I want to eat.   -Varda

And all ready for creamcheese.

Comments

LindyD's picture
LindyD

There simply is no better recipe for a chewy New York bagel than Hamelman's, Vhiamo, and there's simply to reason to even attempt to change it.  They are the best.

Am guessing you found a source of diastatic malt powder?

Nice crumb, lovely color - as to shaping, in my blog on JH's bagels, I posted a link to a good video which walks you through the traditional shaping procedure.

Nice job!

varda's picture
varda

Someone on this list who lives near me, offered to give me some extra that he had.   Now I think I owe him some bagels.   I will definitely check out the video.  Thanks!  Varda

JeremyCherfas's picture
JeremyCherfas

and if you're happy with them, don't change. When you feel like a tiny change, try the Montreal bagel recipe around these parts.

Jeremy

varda's picture
varda

of midwestern hyperbole.  As soon as I wrote the above in the excitement of having made something like a New York bagel, I said to myself, but what about Montreal?   I didn't taste a Montreal bagel until much later in life, as I was dashing through the Ottawa airport one afternoon, so they don't have quite the memory power, but no matter.   Do you have a particular favorite formula?  I have seen a lot of authentic recipes on this site alone, many of them quite different from each other.  Thanks!  Varda