Hello,

I have been on a quest to make bagels.  I have tried many recipes with the exception of Peter Reinhart's.  The only problem with my bagels is that, although they taste delicious, they have been turning out a bit flat.  I have checked the recipes thoroughly and believe that I am measuring all ingredients perfectly.  Any thoughts on what could be causing this.  The recipes I have used are as follows:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/bagels-recipe

http://www.bakingbites.com/2007/06/homemade-bagels/

The recipes advise to let the dough rest before poking a hole in them.  The trouble is, that my shaped bagel balls seem to spread out a bit while they rest and seem to rise a bit.  When I go to enlarge the hole they defate just slightly.  Could my dough be to wet.  All of my measurements are correct.  Should I be using a flour with a higher protien content?  Currently I am using Gold Medal Bread Flour and King Arthur Bread Flour.

Thanks for your advice! 

Skylar

Hello,

I had my first go at making bagels today.  I used my KitchenAid stand mixer for the kneading.  When my dough was mixing, however, it seemed to be really very wet and sticky.  I decided to add more flour so the dough would clear the sides of the mixer bowl and only cling to the very base of the bowl as is customary of most doughs.  I used Gold Medal bread flour for the recipe and measured using the spoon and sweep method yielding just under 4.5 ounces weight per cup of flour.  Any thoughts as to why the recipe could produce a dough so wet?  It was a very wet day.  Should I have used a higher stregnth flour do you think, hence more absorbtion?  Or is this recipe just off the mark?  The recipe proportions are as follows.

1 Tbsp yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1 3/4 cups warm water

4 cups bread flour

Some advice would be great!  Thanks!

Makes six 10 grain and then some seeds bagels!

Yeasty mixture
1/2 Tablespoons Natural cane sugar
3/4 to 1 Cup Warm Water
1 and a smidgen teaspoon of yeast

Combine all three of the above ingredients in a glass and stir. Leave till you have the dry mixture ready.

Dry Mix
1 Tablespoon Natural cane sugar
1 Cup All purpose flour
1 Cup White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Mixture of Sesame Seeds, Flax Seeds and 10 grain cereal mixture
1 Tablespoon Vital Wheat Gluten
1 Teaspoon Sea salt, coarsely ground

Stir the dry mix till everything is well combined, then slowly add in the yeasty mixture while stirring with a wooden spatula till everything is combined and the dough is not dry and not overly tacky. Additional water may be needed depending on the amount of 10 grain mixture or seeds used. Everything should be off the walls of the mixing bowl and bottom when properly hydrated, it should all be collected on the dough ball when thoroughly mixed! Only slightly tacky, not sticky though.

Now flour a work surface and knead the dough for 10 minutes until you achieve a slightly tacky dough ball and proper gluten development. Adding more flour if needed as you go.
After the gluten is developed and the dough is ready, prepare a bowl by slightly oiling it and place the dough in the bowl covered with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Place in a warm area and allow to rise for one hour. The dough will not have risen the amount you would expect from a loaf of bread but it should have risen slightly after one hour in a moderately warm area. I placed mine under my sink, but if you have steam heat in your house (like mine), on the metal radiators would be an excellent place.

Now, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and bowl a large pot of water. While the water is boiling, make six balls of dough from the original dough and place on a cooking sheet with parchment paper on top. Take one ball of dough at a time and either; roll the dough into a snake shape long enough to fit over the palm of your hand and overlap the other end of the dough by an inch and half and proceeded to roll the dough on a moist surface till the bagel is connected at the joint. Then place the bagel on the parchment paper covered with a towel and repeat until all six bagels are formed. Or alternatively, take a dough ball and slowly poke a hole in the middle of the dough. Now using your thumb and index finger work out the hole by stretching and gently pulling the dough to form a larger hole thus creating a traditional bagel shape. Either way, repeat until all bagels are formed.

Once the water is boiling and the bagels are shaped, place two bagels in the pot and boil for about one minute then flip each bagel over and boil for an additional minute. Carefully remove the bagels with a slotted spoon and place on the baking sheet, at this time feel free to add a topping to the bagel by sprinkling, well, on the top. Cover with the towel and repeat for the remaining bagels.

After the bagels are boiled and topped if desired, load them into the heated oven and cook for 25-30 minutes paying attention to make sure they do not burn. The bagels will be done when the reach a light brown color around the tops. You will most likely be cooking near the whole time.

This morning I woke up and decided, why some bread? Why not some bagels! And that is all it took to start my bagel baking!

Now I was rather excitied with how these turned out! Especially since I created my own recipe seeking out a nice, chewy, multi-grain bagel in the end.

To start with;

I combined in a large bowl - 1 and a half cups of luke warm water, a packet of yeast and 1 tablespoon of organic cane sugar and then set it aside while I continued on with the other ingredients.

I proceeded to mix together 2 tablespoons of organic cane sugar, 2 teaspoons of sea salt, 2 table spoons of organic vital wheat gluten, 1 cup of KAF Organic Flour, 2/3 Cups KAF White Whole wheat flour and 1/3 cup mix of 10 grain cereal until well mixed.

Then I poured in the yeast mixture and proceeded to mix the dough adding a bit of water until it came together into a nice semi-shaggy mass which I then in turn promptly floured my counter and proceeded to kneed the dough for 8 minutes until I achieved a slighty tacky dough.

Once the gluten was developed to what I felt was sufficient, I gave it an hour rest covered with plastic wrap in a oiled bowl.

After the rest I pre-heated my oven to 425 f and also started boiling a large pot of water with a pinch of salt and moved onto forming tweleve balls of dough out of the original bagel dough making sure to cover them with a damp towel after they were formed.

Then onto the bagel shaping and boiling! By taking an individual piece of dough I proceeded to poke my thumb gently through the middle until I made a slight hole. When this happened I started to have fun by placing the dough ring on my index finger and twirling it around until the hole was almost the size of a 50 cent piece. Once all the bagel were shaped I placed them (3 at a time) in the boiling water and boiled them for 1 minute, then flipping for another minute and placing them on my baking sheet and covering with sesame or poppy seeds then a towel until all were ready to bake.

After all of the fun the bagels were ready to bake and I proceeded to bake them for 20 minutes in batches of six. The end result was exactly what I wanted!

I also attempted my first strudel today using some organic whole wheat phillo dough, unforunately it looks sloppy, but it did taste excellent for lunch as dessert! And I know I will be attempting to 'strudel' again.

It was filled with fresh strawberries coated in powdered sugar, delicious!

Hi all, 

I am looking for tips on making toppings/seeds stick atop the bagels I bake.  I am thinking of making a solution of egg whites and water, and misting that solution over the toppings once on the bagel.  

Thoughts and suggestion would be very much appreciated!

Thanks, 

Michael

Sometimes I feel as dumb as a box of rocks, but right now I'm driving myself nuts trying to find Floyd's recipe for bagels.  Could someone please give me the link, I will be forever grateful.

Carol

Has anyone out there tried freezing bagels after boiling but before baking?  I have to make brunch for 50 on the morning of my sister's wedding and really want everything to be as fresh as possible.  The general plan would be to thaw them in the fridge the night before and then bake them in the morning.  Unfortunately I  just thought of this possibility and don't have time to experiment before the actual event.  Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Summer

Last Saturday night I decided to try baking bagels.  I had just received my order of KAF Sir Lancelot flour, so I turned to Hamelman's "Bread" and used his straight dough bagel recipe (which I later discovered is the same recipe used by our good friend, baker Norm).  Happily, my Artisan mixer survived, but due to my own lack of planning, at 11:45 p.m. I was staring at three pounds of very stiff dough, ready to be shaped into bagels.  

I cut the dough into four-ounce chunks, rolled each piece into a 10-inch long log, then shaped it by wrapping it around my hand and sealing the ends. By then it was well after midnight, I was half asleep, and did something really stupid: I moved the bagels to parchment covered baking pans.  No oil spray, cornmeal, or semolina flour on the parchment.  Into the refrigerator they went for the night.  Didn't discover the consequences until the next day - but that's a topic for a thread on "stupid bread tricks."

Miraculously I managed to bake 13 wonderful bagels, thanks to the restorative powers of good Sir Lancelot and lots of boiling water laced with malt syrup.  

I've seen comments here about just rolling the dough into a ball, then poking your finger through the center.  Is this as effective as the technique noted above?   

Have any of you used canvas or linen covered bagel boards?  Do these make any major difference in the end product?

The KAF high-gluten flour produced a wonderfully chewy texture.  It was so impressive, I ordered six more bags.

A little while ago there was some conversation about how long fermented commercially yeasted dough can keep without losing it's strength.  I don't have the final word on it or anything but since then i have been pushing the limits with the age of my ferment in various recipes.  This basically entails giving myself permission to NOT stress out every time I open the fridge and see last week's bowl of dough!  This brings me to the reason that I waited to post about it now.  Basically until yesterday, with the exception of pizza dough, I had been using the old dough only in recipes that also used the addition of dry yeast in the final dough so there was no way to tell if some part of the rise came from from the ferment or not.  Yesterday I made a batch of bagels with my seven day old ferment with no added dry yeast in the final dough and they came out great.  During the proofing stage they nearly doubled in volume. They were delicious!

One is plain and one has black sesame seeds.

Summer

Beranbaum's bagel recipe calls for butter in the dough....have you done this?  If so, how do you compare it to bagels without butter included in the dough?  Thanks.