I Tried My Hand at Making Bagels

I haven't been buying bagels recently - mostly because I feel like they aren't the most healthy breakfast option, but also because they are on the pricey side. So when I saw a recipe for bagels in my new favorite book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, I decided to give it a try. Not only is it cheaper, but you can control the ingredients.

I forgot to take any photos of the of the beginning stages, but that's all just measuring and mixing - not too exciting. Of course, I did my own substituting - I wanted these to be a little more nutritious, so I subbed one cup of white flour for wheat.

Anyway, here is my dough, after it has all been mixed.

And here it is, after I've kneaded it for five minutes.

Five minutes doesn't sound like very long, but when you set the timer and all you actually do is knead dough, it is quite a work out!

Anyway, here it is, rising for an hour.

After that, you punch the dough down and then make it into 10 perfectly round, equal balls. Since my motto is "good enough," you can see that my balls are neither equal nor perfectly round. Didn't seem to matter in the end, though.

After that, you stick your thumb through them and round them into bagel shapes. Who knew it was so easy?

Here was the part that made it fun - you bring a large pot of water to boil and then add malt barely syrup. But do any of you actually keep that on hand? The recipe said you could use dark brown sugar instead. Alas, I didn't have that either - but the light brown sugar seemed to turn out okay.

Once the water is boiling, you drop the bagels in there three at a time.

You leave them in that boiling water one minute on each side, then lay them on a tray and while they are still wet, you put on the toppings you want. I did some with salt, some sesame, some plain and some with cinnamon sugar.

Bake them until golden - man, did they smell good while they were cooking!

Here is a close up of the cinnamon sugar - doesn't it look delicious? It is. =) I tasted that one first. Since then, we've tried the rest and they are all yummy! And not too hard!

Up next? Pita. Or maybe English muffins. Hooray!