Homemade Bagels!

When I bought Artisan Bread in 4 Minutes a Day last year, I was excited to make a lot of thing in the book. But not the bagels. It sounded like too much work, with the boiling and what not.
But recently I have decided to take the challenge to make my own! Any bagels in the grocery store have high fructose corn syrup in them. There is a place here that makes their own bagels from scratch, but it's a good 20 minute drive from our house.
So here we go!
First, make the dough.
Recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois
The Dough
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (1 1/2 packets)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
6 1/4 cups bread flour

Mis the yeast, salt, and sugar with the water in your stand mixer bowl. Add the flour to the bowl and mix it with the dough hook attachment until all the flour is incorporated. Put the dough into a lidded container (not airtight). Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for about two hours. Then put the container in the fridge. I left it in overnight.
Making the Bagels
Put a baking stone and an empty broiler tray in the oven. Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Also, get the boiling pot going on the stove. You'll need 8 quarts of water with 1 tsp baking soda and 1/4 cup sugar mixed in with it.

Here is the pretty dough, just taken out of the fridge.

Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 3-oz piece of dough (about the size of a small peach).


Dust the peice with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go.

Here is the piece of dough formed into a ball.

Push your thumb into the middle of the dough and pull it apart until the hole is three times wider than the width of the bagel. I had a little trouble getting my bagel holes to remain open wide enough, my dough was very elastic.

As you can see they are not perfect looking, but that is ok.
Drop the bagels in the boiling pot one or two at a time, don't overcrowd.

After the bagel boils simmers for 2 minutes, flip it over to the over side and cook it for another minute. Then, dip the bagel in your favorite topping. I did three types of bagels, poppy, cheddar cheese and...


Everything bagels, my favorite! I don't know if these actually have everything, but they have poppy seeds, sesame seeds and dried onion flakes. You could also put garlic and salt on, but I opted to leave those out. Another thing you have control of when you bake your own bagels!
Put the bagels in your preheated oven, on the stone. Put one cup of tap water in the broiler pan below and close the door. The steam from the water helps form a crisp outer crust.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until they start getting golden brown.
Here are the finished bagels.
The cheese bagel.
The poppy bagel.
And the beautiful everything bagel!
We made ham and cheese sandwiches with our fresh bagels.