Chewy Sourdough Bagels

Chewy Sourdough Bagels

Makes 12 bagels

600 grams Hi-Gluten Flour

300 grams un-proofed sourdough starter

300 grams COLD water, you may need to add more if your machine is struggling to knead

17 grams salt

1 tablespoon sugar

20 grams malt extract or powder

50 grams powdered milk

1 teaspoon instant yeast

Optional add to the dough for onion bagels: 1/2 cup dried toasted onions

Plus 1-2 tablespoons more malt extract for the boiling water

Add the ingredients to the bread machine and set to the dough cycle. Just go through the kneading cycle, don’t let it rise. Place dough on floured countertop. Cut the dough into 12 pieces that are close to the same size.

The easy way to shape bagels, is to roll the dough into a ball, poke a hole in the center of the ball and then stretch the ball into a doughnut shape. Start by finding the center of the bagel ball, poke your fingers through the ball  then use a finger and thumb, twirl, and stretch the dough

Once the bagels are formed, leave them on the floured counter and cover with a dishtowel, let rise for 45 minutes.

After 30 minutes, place a large pot of water on to boil and set your oven to 450F.  If you want to seed the bagels, put some poppy or sesame seeds, kosher salt, and or granulated garlic onto a plate as the water is heating.

Add a tablespoon or two of malt extract, either liquid or powdered, to the water once it is boiling.

Test one bagel; Drop in the boiling sugar water and if the bagel never floated, or took more than a minute to float, give the rest of the bagels, another 15 minutes rising time.  If it floated too quickly, next time give them a bit less rising time.

Don't crowd the bagels in the pot they need room to move around. After a minute, whether they floated or not, flip them over. Give them another minute.

Drain on a rack set over a paper towel lined baking sheet.

To seed the bagels; dip the rounder side in the seeds you prepared earlier as soon as the bagels are pulled out of the water and are cool enough to touch. I seed both sides,

Place the bagels on a large parchment lined baking sheet, or use two sheets, Now it's time to bake the bagels, place in the oven and turn down the heat to 425F.  Bake bagels for  20-25 minutes. Don't be afraid to leave the bagels in the oven a few more minutes, you want the crust to have a nice brown color.  If you can’t fit two sheets in the oven, just leave the second batch on the counter and bake after the first batch comes out of the oven.

Cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, you can slice them and toast them. The old joke is that bagels are the only food we boil, bake and then toast, just to make sure they're really, really, really dead.

They freeze really well.