After the success of those scrumptious sandwich buns last week, I decided to try another something new, a second recipe I had tucked away for a rainy day (or a day when I was feeling particularly adventurous) - bagels. Up until now, I have been buying all my bagels from Blue Baker, a wonderful local bakery. My favorite is the cinnamon bagel (no raisins, don't like 'em and it's tough to find a bagel that's just cinnamon). Because Blue Baker makes their bagels fresh every day, with no preservatives, I usually buy a half dozen, slice them, freeze them, and just pull 1/2 bagel out for breakfast when I want it. Four minutes in the toaster oven, a nice thick slathering of butter, and they're perfect! 
Of course, now I'm baking my own bread. Why not bagels too? The recipe I found (from the Baking Bites blog) is a very basic, simple recipe. I decided to try the basic version first and then get creative with adding cinnamon in a second batch another day. The ingredients were simple and the directions were pretty straight forward, now that I have a few months of bread-making under my belt. Everything went really smoothly and I had a blast making that bagel shape (I feel like such a pro!). They got nice a golden brown in the oven with the help of the egg wash I applied just before baking. And as you can see, they aren't exactly the perfect little rounds you get at the store, but what they lack in beauty, they more than make up for in texture, crumb, and most importantly, taste. Mmmm, fresh, homemade bagels! I popped 1/2 in the toaster oven for a yummy afternoon snack and tucked the rest of them in the freezer. With a nice bowl of fresh, local fruit, these bagels will turn into almost a month's worth of future breakfasts!
This was definitely made easier with 3 months of bread baking experience - I probably would have had some trouble a month ago with getting the right consistency and with the shaping of the dough (and using the super-cool, ultra mega mixer certainly didn't hurt) - but this really was simple. And, let's see. For the entire batch, I spent maybe $2 on supplies. At the bakery, they would have run $10. Not bad. This is definitely a frugal option. Best of all, I learned a new skill - I can now make one of my favorite foods from scratch. It's going to be a very yummy day!
4 comments:
Did you have to boil the doll? I thought that boiling was a part of the process of making bagels.
Sure did. Boiled them 2 minutes on one side, then 1 minute on the other and let them drain on a towel before baking them in the oven. It was an awkward step with it being my first time, but they turned out nicely.
Too bad I didn't have any canning to do though. I had a nice big pot of hot water when I was done with the bagels. I'll have to coordinate projects more next time.
I was going to ask about the boiling as well. My husband has been asking for bagels. I think I'll give it a shot soon and I'll write about it as well. Thanks for the inspiration.
It really was easy. It was just like making any other bread except for the boiling. Of course the shaping is just a little different, but it wasn't a big deal at all. If you can do yeast bread, you can do bagels. Let me know how it goes!
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