The great homemade bagel experiment

Is it possible for a mediocre baker to make great bagels at home?  Bagels that not only meet, but exceed store-bought?  In the name of science, I decided to put it to the test.  I resolved that I would try to do it without looking for instructions on the internet.

I had a great source of information to help prepare for this particular experiment:  A New York Jewish friend, who has a New York Jewish mother and grandmother.  Surely they could help.

They were no flippin' help at all.  They did, however offer to teach me to make matzo balls and tell me the best place to buy Hamantaschen.

That's what I get for stereotyping.  I should have realized that I have never, ever seen a Jewish member of my family provide bagels that didn't come straight from Noah's or Bruegger's.

So for assistance, I then turned to my Goy friend who had once worked in a bagel shop for all of about 27 minutes.  The following is based on the vague information given by him, with my modifications.

NOTE:  After this successful trial run, I modified my recipe for even better results.  After reading, be sure to check here to see the changes I made.

First, I started with some simple ingredients:

Bagel ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup warm water
1 packet active yeast

I didn't bother with the pricey oil -- I would have for frying -- but I was particular about the salt (sea salt w/o iodine) and water (filtered, not tap) to avoid introducing odd chemical flavors.

Note -- I kept my hands washed extra-well all the way through the process, because my days home-brewing beer taught me that yeast is easily contaminated, resulting in strange flavors.

So far, pretty easy.  I mixed all of them together at the same time, unlike many bread recipes which call for multiple steps in preparing the dough.  To avoid any real work, I used my mix-master (with dough hook attachment as the whisk would not have worked at all on this highly elastic dough).  It could have been done by mixing the ingredients in a bowl and then kneading by hand for 5-10 minutes.

Dough hook (hanging on lip of bowl)

Once the dough formed an elastic ball that hung on the hook, I figured it had kneaded long enough.

This looks properly kneaded!

I had been told this would form 6-8 bagels, so I separated the dough into eight equally sized balls.

Ready to form

These I formed into rings.  At this point I started pre-heating the oven to 425 degrees.  Here's a short (1:11) video of how I did it, because this was the really dicey part of the process:

If you didn't watch the video, I shaped each ball into a snake long enough to wrap around something about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (I used my fingers bunched together), overlapped the two ends by about 1/2 inch, and pinched them together.  It sounds simple, but I only averaged good looking rings half the time, and the other half they wound up resembling mutant crescent rolls:

I am Lord of the Rings!

After sitting for 20 minutes, they had puffed up a little from the yeast.  I decided to cook four at a time so if I wasn't happy with the first group, I could correct.  The first four went into boiling water (no salt!) for one minute, then I turned them and boiled for one more minute.  This first batch didn't rise to the top of the water as I had expected.  I was a little worried.

Boiling bagels

Then I transfered them to an oiled cooking sheet, baked for 10 minutes, flipped them, and baked for 10 more minutes.

The result:  Far denser than commercial, but also far more flavorful.  All in all, my home-brew bagels beat Sara Lee hands-down.

The second batch had risen for at least 40 minutes now, and were far more puffed up.  I had made the mistake, however, of keeping them on an un-oiled plate.  It took some work peeling them off and some got quite disfigured in the process.

This group rose quickly to the top of the boiling water, so I knew I was in for a different outcome.  I also chose to bake this group for 12 minutes on a side.

The result:  Equally flavorful as the first group, but a far more desirable density.

Conclusions from this rather dangerous, challenging and rigorous experiment:

• Try it, it's easy and worth the wonderful flavor.
• Make sure you don't get distracted during the boiling or baking part.
• Don't get bummed if your rings don't appear perfect.  They'll still taste great.
• Let the rings rise for around 30 to 45 minutes on an oiled surface.  Don't boil them too soon.

The beautiful end result