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Sourdough lye bagels - hold that cream cheese

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Sourdough lye bagels - hold that cream cheese

I am training for a marathon, the Dallas White Rock Marathon to be exact. It ain't my first time, I have run 4 marathons before, but it never gets any easier, or less exciting/challenging. Race day is a month from now, which means my mileage is getting up to 55 miles per week, with 2 20 miler runs already under my belt. In the mean time, I am foever hungry, especially craving carbs. At the smell, sight, or mere mention of food, my ears perk up, my nose starts twitching: FOOD?! Is there food? Can I have some? Actually can I have ALL OF IT? - in another word, I am turning into my dog.

 

There are in fact more crazy people like me, and we crazies get up at the butt crack of dawn on perfectly nice and lazy Sundays to run for 3 hours together. Afterwards, we hang out, chat, pick on/encourag each other, and compare injuries and accidents, all the while eating nonstop of course. For these fun (and somewhat smelly) occassions I often bring bagels. These lovely sourdough lye bagels were from this past weekend. (recipe see my previous blog).

They are different from the ones I made before in two ways: First I boiled them in lye solution rather than baking soda. The ratio I used was 2tsp of lye in 2 quarts of water. I liked how the bagels had deeper color, crispier crust, and better flavor.Second, I put yummy fillings in them so it's easier for us to grab and eat. The following are filled with sweetened cream cheese:

Don't use cream cheees directly, it will be too runny during baking, I used cream cheese filling leftover from carrot rolls:

cream cheese, 113g

corn starch, 19g

sugar, 40g

vanilla essence, 2g

 

Some of them prefer to eat something savory after a long run, these were filled with a mixture of pancetta, cheddar, and yellow mustard.

Bagels with fillings inside, why aren't they more popular? So easy to eat and so delicious. We met at a guy's house for the group run, so we toasted these whole (without spliting, less work, yay) in his toaster oven, perfect post run fuel. To shape them, first roll out each piece of dough into long oval

Then roll up and seal well, and connect the ends, do make sure the seam is down on the bottom, otherwise filling will ooz out during baking.

 

These chocolate ones are for me, and me only. Added cocoa powder and dark chocolate in the dough, this is dessert shamelessly pretending to be breadfast.

 

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

 

Comments

arlo's picture
arlo

Bagels are always delicious! And yours are making me crave them even more so! If you get the chance, two weeks ago I made Hamelman's recipe but added it a very, very large portion of freshly grated asiago and about 2-3% fresh cracked black pepper!

Oh my goodness...talk about a delicious bagel!

Excellent bake though Txfarmer, and good luck on the marathon. Last month the owner's wife of the bakery I bake at ran her first marathon. She did wonderfully but is going back to running smaller amounts, say 5 miles or so each run. I remember always telling her while she was training, "I am so jealous!! I wish I could just eat and eat and eat!".

I myself just run 5k three times a week and it suits me well!

Keep up the great work!

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Cheese and pepper, yum! My mileage tend to be much lower when I am not in marathon training. It's impossible "for me" to keep up this kinda of mileage - my days are spent on running, sleeping, makeing food, eating food, and working (a.k.a. thinking about food). Long distance runners' life style is kinda basic huh? :P

GSnyde's picture
GSnyde

Wow!!

Beautiful and very creative.

I can see why those chocolate ones are just for you.

Glenn

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Thanks! I am making the chocolate ones again, this time I will put the chocolate chunks inside as filling, this way I won't end up with "chocolate fingers" when I grab one.

MadAboutB8's picture
MadAboutB8

You're GENIUS! You're like the kitchen, baking genie or something.

I love the idea of filled bagels...they look so delish!

I'm thinking of something similar for my picnic with my girlfirends this weekend too. I am thinking to do a sweet roll with chocolate filling, and make them into knot roll. I was wondering before how I can put my idea into practice. Your post has provided the answer...thank you for sharing.

Sue

http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com/

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Sounds delicious! To make it easier to roll out and tie the knot, you may want to chop the chocolate into small chunks.

ehanner's picture
ehanner

Very nice looking txfarmer!

So you would say there is definitely an improvement using lye over baking soda?

Eric

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Using lye, there's an obvious thin crisp shell, thinner and crispier than using baking soda. And there's this "lye taste" that reminds me of pretzels, which I love. I don't think I will go back to baking soda now.