Soft and chewy, these bagels have few ingredients, but are packed with delicious flavor. Definitely worth the time to make!
Well we are about a month into quarantine. My work is still on hiatus. My roommate is teaching via online. My time sitting around has definitely gone up, but so has my exercising, so that's good. But then, I'm not sure that the increase in exercise is countering the amount of baking and eating I'm doing. Hmmm. I've been watching the King Arthur Flour videos they've been posting lately, and a couple weeks ago they made bagels. I decided to try them too. A few years ago, my friend Liz and I tried making bagels. She had Fridays off from work, and with my flexible schedule, we would get together on Friday mornings to bake. But sense we were trying to go from start to finish all in one morning, we didn't do any recipes that required that they rested overnight. So our bagels were good, but these are a lot better. By letting it sit overnight, the bagels are a lot better. I really liked these bagels. I like how the texture of these bagels turned out. They are soft, yet chewy, and with just a few ingredients, they still have a great flavor. These are definitely on my list to make again. *slightly adapted from Kingarthurflour.com. Poolish 1 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 3/8 teaspoons dry active yeast 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons warm water Dough 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 3/4 teaspoons salt 7/8 teaspoon dry active yeast Water Bath 2 tablespoons molasses 1 tablespoon salt Toppings cinnamon & sugar, sesame seeds, coarse salt, dehydrated onion, poppy seeds, or everything bagel topping Make the poolish: Stir the flour and yeast together in a medium bowl. Add in the water and mix until smooth. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 to 8 hours. The longer you wait, the more flavor the bagels will have, but if you don't have more time you can use it earlier. For the dough: Stir the poolish and the water together in a large bowl. Add the flour, salt and yeast. Stir together until it forms a mass. It will still be tacky, but don't add more flour. Cover and let dough rest for one hour. Stretch and fold the dough onto itself a few times. Let rest another hour. Place the dough in the fridge overnight. Remove the dough from the fridge and let rest at room temperature for an hour or two. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Shape each into a ball. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes. Poke a hole in the middle of each ball. Expand the hole 2" or 3" inches in diameter. Let rest another for 20 to 30 minutes. With the bagels resting, preheat oven to 475 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment and set aside. Fill a pot about 4" deep with water. Add molasses and salt. Bring to a boil. Gently place bagels in the water bath, only adding as many as there is space for without crowding. Boil for about 30 seconds. Flip over the bagels for another 60-90 seconds. Remove bagels from the water. Allow the bagels to drip for a few seconds before placing them on the lined pan, making sure to space them 2" to 3" apart. Sprinkle any desired toppings on the bagels. Bake the bagels for 20 to 25 minutes or until bagel bottoms and sides are a deep golden brown and firm. Remove the bagels from the oven and cool them on a rack.
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