Bagels - this looks more like it
I'd say this looks more like bagels. The previous ones were a little too small. 4 oz are the right size. I also used a homemade malt powder, tried to sprout my own with wheat berries. Soaked for 3-4 days. There was a little white sprout, but somehow didn't like the ones in Dan Lepard's book on The Homemade Loaf. But I went ahead to dry and grind it then. I added in this ingredient, but still without malt syrup, I substituted with brown sugar. The colouring looks fine I guess.
The puff was much better, the taste was chewy and there's a tinge of sweetness - could it be the malt powder? I wonder. Perhaps.
But my 2nd batch that went in didn't puff as much, see bottom left picture, the comparison, the one on the right is the 2nd batch, I suspect its the ice cold water, most melted after the 1st batch.
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Comments
Hi Jenny,
I admire your tenacity in moving forward sans some of the ingredients.
I think the sweetness may have come from the brown sugar.
If they're chewy and taste good, that's great.
Congratulations!
Jenny - These look pretty good and have a nice rise in them. I'd quit worrying about the diastatic malt powder if it's not readily available. Use high gluten flour, and add a bit of honey if you want - you don't want them too sweet, though!
I haven't seen Lepard's recipe, so I don't know all the ins-and-outs of what is recommended. I'm not sure the ice bath is responsible for the amount of 'puffiness' you're experiencing - we don't even bother with an ice bath where I work, and the bagels are simply allowed to dry for about 2-3 minutes between being taken taken out of the boil and put into the oven.
We DO steam them, however, and that has an appreciable impact on their rise within the oven during the bake.
The only other thing I'd recommend is that you work a little more on your shaping technique. Try rolling them out (by the way, 3 oz may be a slightly better size than 4 oz, but that's your call) to a length of about 12-14 inches, making sure that the ends are tapered. Pick the cylinder up and wrap around your hand (depending on whether you are right or left handed), with the ends overlapping about 2 inches under your palm. Squeeze one end of the overlap by clenching your hand, and the other end with your thumb. Place seam-side down on the table, and then roll your palm forward and backward a couple times to seal the seam tightly. If you've rolled the dough evenly and tapered the ends, you'll have bagels that are more or less uniform in thickness.
Otherwise, as LindyD said, if they chew good and taste good, you're there!
Larry
Lindy - thanks, making bread does take a lot of determination...to ensure that we get the bread that we want.
Larry - I was going to post whether steaming will make any difference to the dough instead of boiling, and you'd already given that opinion here, I'll try it the next time round if this works better than boiling. You did notice that I can't seem to shape it right. Thanks for the suggestion. Somehow after wrapping it around the ahnd and roll, the side that is being rolled tends to become thinner. I guess I didn't taper the end properly. This is going to be the next thing to work on then. Perfecting the skills of shaping....
Jenny - No, you MUST boil the bagels, otherwise they're not bagels. The steaming is something you can do in addition that can yield a bit more rise.
Sorry about the confusion.
Larry
Thanks Larry for clarifying. I would have ended up making chinese bao instead if I had steamed.....well...got to wait for weekends before I got time to try anything....