Bagels and Portuguese Sweet Bread

I had a choice today clean my house or bake. I opted for baking. Cleaning will have to wait until later today or tomorrow. I started to make PR bagels. It was an easy recipe to follow. I made no changes to the recipe. I found diastatic malt syrup at a local beer store and used that as the sweetener. I formed the bagels using the rope method. The first couple were a bit misshapen but got the hang of it. I put them in the fridge to retard overnight. I woke up at 3 and 5 AM but made myself wait until 6:30. I had to get up to boil and bake them to see how they turned out. I tried to wait the 15 minutes before tasting them. Oh MY these were the best bagels I have tasted! They were crunchy and chewy on the outside and soft and tasty on the inside. I will definitely be making these again...maybe later today. I made 13 4 oz bagels 

I also made Portuguese Sweet Bread. I was not quite as happy with this bread as with the bagels. The dough came together well. I didn't have any orange or lemon extract so I put a little orange and lemon zest in the dough. It gave the bread a wonderful scent. The recipe said to have the bread rise in the pan for 2 to 3 hours or until the dough fills the pans fully. I think I left them a little too long and the loaves were over proofed. They had large holes just under the crust. I didn't get any over spring. the loaves had a nice crust and you could taste the zest flavours. It is not my favourite bread. It was kind of blah.