Clas­sic Bagels

Clas­sic Bagels

(makes 8)

2 tsps (one enve­lope) active dry yeast

1 ½ tbsps gran­u­lat­ed sugar

355 ml/1 ¼ cups warm water (you may need ¼ cup more, depend­ing on cli­mat­ic conditions)

500g/3 1/2 cups strong bread flour or high-gluten flour (will need extra for kneading)

1 ½ tea­spoons salt

In a cup, place the yeast, sug­ar and 125 ml/1/2 cup of the warm water.  Leave for five min­utes with­out stir­ring, then stir thoroughly.

Place the flour in the bowl of the stand mix­er, and make a well in the cen­ter.  Pour in the yeast mix­ture, low­er the bread-mak­ing blade into the bowl and turn on low.  Grad­u­al­ly add the remain­ing warm water as the mix­er works, scrap­ing the sides of the bowl as need­ed.  After sev­er­al min­utes the dough will be so stiff that the mix­er makes small thump­ing move­ments and nois­es.  Don’t wor­ry!  The goal is to incor­po­rate all the flour for a very stiff dough, so add more warm water as you need to, to form such a dough.  It was such fun, using my friend Fion­a’s machine and my moth­er’s flour can­is­ter, a wed­ding present over 50 years ago.

When the dough is ready, place it in an oiled bowl at least twice as large as the dough.  Turn the ball of dough so that it is all cov­ered with oil.  Cov­er with cling film or a damp tea tow­el and leave in a warm place for at least an hour (I left mine for over six hours as I was out of the house).  Punch down and on a floured sur­face, divide into eight equal portions.

Roll them into as per­fect balls as you can attain, then with a flour thumb, make a hole in the cen­ter and spin the dough around your thumb until you have a… bagel!  Place them on an oiled bak­ing tray.

Cov­er them with a damp tow­el and let rest for 10 min­utes.  Heat your oven to 220C/425F.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, then place as many bagels as can fit in a sin­gle lay­er into the bub­bling water.  Boil for 2 min­utes, then turn over and boil for anoth­er 2 min­utes.  Remove with a slot­ted spoon to the oiled bak­ing tray and con­tin­ue until all bagels are boiled.

Now, while they are wet, you can choose whether to bake them plain, or sprin­kle them with top­pings.  Sea salt is per­fect, of course, but oth­er won­der­ful ideas are:

pop­py seeds

sesame seeds (black or blond)

dehy­drat­ed minced onion

dehy­drat­ed minced garlic

The clas­sic New York “every­thing bagel” is just what it says on the tin: every­thing on this list.

Bake the bagels for about 20 min­utes, to the brown­ness you like.  Sit back and feel home­sick for New York City, then dig in.