Friday, May 15, 2009

Today's Production at the Bakery : Bagels










With whole wheat flour in them, you can be sure they are good for you, so you will not only like them for their marvelous taste, but also for the fact that they are healthful.
Unlike other bakery items, they are boiled briefly before being baked and that gives them a shiny yummy crust.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1 pack instant dry yeast or 7 gr
2 TBSP sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
prepare more flour to have handy in case you will need more
kosher salt
sesame seeds
poppy seeds

Directions:
In a medium size bowl pour the water and the yeast and sugar and let sit for 3 to 5 minutes, for the yeast to soften.
Add the salt and the whole wheat flour and stir.
Now you can either do this by hand or employ an electric mixer.
Either stir by hand or by mixer for 5 minutes.
Now turn add more flour to gradually make a stiffer dough until you have incorporated the whole 3 cups.
In the meantime you may need to turn the dough onto a floured surface and keep kneading till you reach a smooth and elastic dough. At least 10 minutes of kneading, sorry. :(
You need to make sure you obtain a firmer dough than for the usual bread dough.
Now place in a greased bowl and let rise for 2 hours.
Punch dough down, divide in thirds and each third in 3 pieces.
I weighed my dough ball before dividing and dividing by 9 i got an exact weight of 80 gr for each ball.
So now you have 9 balls.
To shape each one into a bagel, poke thumb through center and slightly stretch and roll the dough to resemble a donut, making sure the hole in the middle is at least 1 and 1/2 inch wide.
Let them rest on a cutting board or on your work surface for 30 minutes.
Now bring to a boil a big pot of water to which you need to add at least 2 TBSP sugar.
Preheat your oven to 400 F and lightly grease a baking sheet and sprinkle with corn meal.
Place 3 bagels in at a time and let them boil slowly for 30 seconds for each side.
Lift and drain briefly and let rest on plates.
When you are done boiling them, arrange the bagels neatly in the baking pan and glaze each one with a mixture of an egg yolk beaten with 1 TBSP water or milk.
Sprinkle salt, sesame seeds and / or poppy seeds on each, as you desire.
What i do is place the bagels in the pan, glaze with egg one at a time, and quickly add salt then the sesame or poppy seeds. And after that I pass on to work on the next.
Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until they are rich brown and delicious.
Enjoy !

4 comments:

  1. Your bagels look delicious! Just needs cream cheese :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Make them and tell me what you think of the taste ! Thanks for stopping by !

    ReplyDelete