The Fresh Loaf

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Bacon Bagels

bagelsfromnh's picture
bagelsfromnh

Bacon Bagels

I have a small home based bagel business. My bacon bagels are not wow enough. I've tried putting bacon in the dough and also on top of the shaped bagels after boiling them. I can't figure out why the bacon flavor is not coming through in the dough; there's plenty of bacon in the dough. Could it be that it is both cooked and then boiled? Any ideas to improve on this?

mariana's picture
mariana

Hi, 

do you fry your bacon prior to adding it to the bagel dough?

In my experience, it is rendered bacon fat that flavors more than bits of raw or fried bacon added to the bread, bun or bagel dough.

So you might consider adding a Tbsp of that to your dough or replacing whatever fat is in your formula with bacon fat. 

There is also bacon flavor extract available in stores, a drop of that would go a long way, if you don't want to increase fat content of your bagels. 

bagelsfromnh's picture
bagelsfromnh

Thanks for this information; will experiment with a couple of these ideas. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

and try brushing the finished bagel with rendered fried bacon fat.  

Oh, Lordy!  I need a bacon fix fast!

Just another idea.... bacon tea: fry bacon then boil the fried bacon strips or pieces in some water and use the water in the dough... combine the poor fried and boiled bacon bits into dough as a filling.  A touch of caraway in the dough might bring forward bacon flavour.

bagelsfromnh's picture
bagelsfromnh

I'm going to try and brush the bagel with bacon fat; like that idea! Thanks.