The Fresh Loaf

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ITJB FR Week 7 Montreal Bagels, pps 100-101

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

ITJB FR Week 7 Montreal Bagels, pps 100-101

We 3 sisters can critique this week's bake with one word! Wow! That one word really describes the dough and the process for making this QUICK bagel, no overnight in the refrigerator, no long, long, rises... from the beginning of the recipe to bite down is less than 3 hours! Great dough, great taste. As per our usual we went different directions on this bake, all converging on a great reward... Yummy Bagels.  Fluffy, soft crust, yet chewy... I know, hard to image chewy and fluffy, but this dough does it.  

Yeah, this is how it started and it just gets better, these pretties are Helen's resting for a mere 10 minutes prior to their water bath.

Yep... those are topped with minced onion... she put onion water in the dough to pull that great flavor all the way through the bagel.

 Looking good... so as you see Helen chose to make all of her bagels with the onion topping. She told me that with that cream cheese they were Awesome! 

I chose to make my bagels plain, that is what my husband likes and that way we can use them for savories or sweets... had some with jalapeno jelly and cream cheese... (again) and loved it.

 all packed up and ready to savor.

  I do love cream cheese with jalapeno jelly.

Next, Barb made half of her bagels plain, 2 with poppy seeds, 2 with sesame seeds, and two with a mixture of poppy, sesame, and sunflower seeds... YUMMY!

  What a great job! These all  look so good. 

All those different toppings sure give Barb's family a choice of flavors for their munching delight.

We had a good time together. We enjoyed the baking and truthfully this will be my "go to" recipe for bagels in the future. Helen mentioned the stretchiness of the dough would work well for bialys also, I agree.  GREAT BAKE THIS WEEK... glue a book marker to page 100 in your book.  Meet us here next week for Rugelach pps. 216-217

HAPPY BAKING,

Diane

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

puffed up circles with your bagels.  By the time I and my apprentice handle them over and over again for boiling and seeds, they are all catawampus and sometimes a little flat too and look like a doofus made them.  Well,  maybe a doofus did make them but I can't blame my apprentice for everything even though she is pretty handy and guilty looking most of the time.

Helen's onion bagels are just plain great.  A few poppy seeds and they could be bialy's with holes :-)  Barb's came out so beautifully brown they look very professional.  I like Diane'splain ones the best though.  They remind me of of NY the most even though they are Montreal.  I think plain bagels get short thrift and they are under appreciated.

What is it with Texas, Jalapeno Jelly and cream cheese? 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

I've found that I can round out my "circles" before and after resting, and then again before and after the water bath. That works for most of them but sometimes the holes in the middle take on a funny triangle shape-don't know how my apprentice does that trick.

I think the tasting jury agrees with the plain bagels winning the vote here too. Those six are long gone and the next to the last seeded ones just today went missing.

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

We three sisters realize that using the word fluffy with the word great when referring to bagels is not the norm. After all, aren't bagels expected to be crusty, crunchy and very chewy? I have to describe these bagels as really quite good though. The depth of flavor from a long rise is absent but there is plenty of taste left so it isn't all that noticable in its absence. Stan mentions in the book about people migrating on to Montreal where this formula was designed for fast production.  I would venture a guess that some of them must have stopped in Detroit and opened bakeries because this is the bagel I remember. It won't replace the two and three day preparation time for the Tartine breads but it a good recipe to have on hand when you want a bagel without spending days making one. Whether it is long ago childhood memories or the need to complete something in short order, I will make these again (and probably again and again)

We enjoyed our time together baking the Montreal bagels, and our families especially enjoyed the fruits of our labor!

jannrn's picture
jannrn

So...where do I get this recipe and or the book???

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Amazon should have the second printing (that would be my choice) as well as several subject specific Kindle editions. It is an informative book as well as a collection of recipes and techniques which have disappeared from sight over the last few years. It has been said that even if there were no recipes in the book, I'd buy it for the history and if there was no history, I'd still buy it just for the recipes. I was one of the recipe testers and now I am continuing the challenge of baking something different each week. My sisters and I bake at the same time from three different locations and send comments and pictures back and forth each week. It has been so much fun for us, we often have a family challenge once or twice in addition.

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

Well, how to explain it? When you take a brick of Cream Cheese and pour over that any number of Jellies or sauces, individually... you can use a Raspberry Chipotle, or Jalapeno, or sweet jams... whatever, I just happen to love the jalapeno. I had a great grape and jalapeno mix I bought at a wine faire, that was made with wine as the juice base... that was awesome with cream cheese too... Try it DA and I bet I will see it on one of your great spreads in the future. ;-)

Tempting, huh?

Diane