My Bagels Rocked!

I've been meaning to whip up a batch of bagels for several weeks now. This weekend I finally got around to it. YUM!

A good bagel is hard to find -- most lack that wonderful chewiness that only a boiled bagel produces. So I'm happy to report that my batch were nice and chewy AND they toasted up wonderfully. There's something about a bagel slathered in melted butter to make your day perk up. Even better, the hubby paid me the highest compliment: he ate THREE that day (quite a gift, as he tends to avoid carbs like the plague! HA!).

Anyhoo, from the recipe in Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice, here are the steps I used to make my bagels:

Day One
Because Reinhart is a big fan of extended retarding in the fridge, this recipe takes two days. The first step, obviously, is making the sponge. So I mixed 4 cups high-gluten flour, 1 tsp. yeast, and 2.5 cups of water together, then let that ferment on the counter for a while. Reinhart says the sponge needs 2 hours to get "foamy and bubbly," but my batch took almost 4 hours.



When the sponge was finally ready to use, I added another 1.5 tsp. yeast to it, then another 3 cups of flour and 2.75 tsp. salt. I tried using my mixer to incorporate the flour, but the dough became so stiff that I eventually had to take it out and finish mixing it by hand. Once I got the rest of the dry flour mixed in, I kneaded the stiff dough on the counter for 10 minutes, until the dough was, as Reinhart says, "satiny and pliable but not tacky."



Then I quickly divided the dough into 4.5-oz pieces, using my digital scale. Note: The bagels turned out quite large, so in the future I would reduce this to 3.5-oz pieces.

Now the real fun began! I rolled the scaled dough out into tubes. I covered them with damp paper towels and let them rest for 20 minutes on the counter. While they rested, I lined 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly misted the paper with cooking spray.



After the dough strips rested, I rolled them out a bit more, then wrapped each strip around my hand, overlapping the dough by several inches. I sealed the edges by pressing the overlapped area onto the counter as I rocked my hand back and forth.



After shaping each bagel, I placed it on the prepared baking sheet. When all the bagels were shaped, I misted them with cooking oil, wrapped them loosely in plastic wrap and let them rest another 20 minutes. (There's a lot of napping in baking!)



To see if the bagels were ready for their overnight retarding in the fridge, I put one to the "float test." Reinhart says the dough must float within 10 seconds or it needs more nap-time. My bagel floated right away, so I put both pans in the fridge.



Day Two
After my 5-hour baking class, I came home tired, but hungry. So I decided to get to those bagels. I cranked the oven up to 500 degrees, and set a large pot of water to boil, adding baking soda to the water. Here are my plump, retarded bagels about to take their dip in the hot tub. ;-)



I boiled the bagels about two minutes on each side, then placed them back on their pans. While they boiled, I sprinkled the pans with cornmeal, to make sure they didn't stick during baking. After taking each out of their bath boil, I topped the bagels with sea salt and seeds.



Here are my finished bagels. They only take about 10 minutes to bake!