A Bagel Break

Bagels, the perfect antidote to an overdose of sticky, tempermental sourdough ryes.  They may not be the prettiest bagels to ever come out of the kettle, but YUM!  I don't know why I didn't try these sooner.  These are going to replace english muffins as my "easy, little, single-serving bread" of choice... at least for a while.  The simple fact that there is nothing sticky going on makes them a breath of fresh air.

They are 100% whole wheat, straight out of Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.  I didn't have any barley malt syrup, so I used dark, local honey, but I will definitely be picking some up for the next batch.

I'm eager to try different additions to the boiling-water.  For this batch I used baking soda and a little molasses just for the heck of it, but that didn't seem to get me a very bagel-like crust.  Not that I'm going for any kind of serious authenticity here!  Not really in my nature to stress about that, and besides, I wouldn't know an authentic bagel if it jumped out of the oven and sang "New York, New York."

-Marcus