Bagels- Two Ways

This week I was in the mood for bagels. They are really my favorite breakfast bread and also make great savory sandwiches, so I decided to make 1 batch of bagels two ways- one sweet and one savory. The picture above shows one of the sweet bagels- a cinnamon raisin Scottish oat one. I decided to try a new recipe and a new method of making bagels and then add my own twist on it. The result was a very soft, chewy bagel with a nice crust on the outside. They are so delicious! It was a big treat to enjoy a freshly made bagel this morning.

I used a recipe that I found on the blog The Fresh Loaf which was adapted from the book The Bread Bakers Apprentice.

Here is my version of the recipe along with my notes.

From this basic recipe I made cinnamon sugar bagels and garlic bagels.

Scottish Oat Bagels- with variations- Adapted from The Bread Bakers Apprentice

Makes: 12-14 bagels (I made 14 bagels with 1 recipe)

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cup all purpose flour (the original called for bread flour, but I did not have any)
2 1/2 cups water- warm from the tap

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups bread flour- or all purpose flour
1 cup Scottish oats
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons malt powder
OR
1 tablespoon malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar- I used honey

1/2 cup sugar + 2 teaspoons cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar bagels
1 teaspoon garlic powder for the garlic bagels

Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water
Cornmeal for dusting the pan
Toppings for the bagels such as seeds, salt, onion, or garlic- I did not top my bagels

The Night or Late Afternoon Before:


Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours. As you can see in the photo above the sponge gets very bubbly.- I let it rise slightly longer than two hours because I wanted to finish eating dinner before I made the dough. I think that any recipe that starts with a sponge is going to turn into a lighter, fluffier, more flavorful bread because it seems like the yeast gets a good head start in rising.

Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional yeast into the sponge. Add 2 cups of the flour, the 1 cup of Scottish oats, the malt powder or honey and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. You may need to work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to make the dough less sticky, either while still mixing in the bowl or while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.

At this point I divided the dough in half and added 1/2 cup of sugar + 1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar bagels to one half of the dough. Then, to the other half I added 1 teaspoon of garlic powder to make the garlic bagels.

Knead each half of the dough for about 10 minutes on a floured board.

Right after kneading, divide the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each. I used a kitchen scale to measure out each ball. If you don't have a kitchen scale, try to divide the dough as evenly as possible into 12-14 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes. In the photo below you can see the size of the balls of dough on a tray before resting the dough.


Shaping the bagel is very simple. Punch your thumb through the center of each roll and then rotate the dough, working it so that the bagel is as even in width as possible.

Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan or pans, with an inch or so of space between one another. If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil or pan spray before placing the bagels on the pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes. My formed bagels are pictured below:


After about 20 minutes of rising time, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator overnight. This will develop the flavor in the bagels.

The Next Morning:

Preheat the oven to 500F. I decided to use the convection feature on my oven- so it was set at 475F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the pot.

When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to flip them over and boil them on the other side.

Before removing them from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan. Remove them one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan. At this point you can top the bagels with seeds, etc. if you wish while they are still wet. Otherwise you can leave them plain, or brush an egg wash on them.

Place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, (or 425 in a convection oven) rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. I let the bagels bake a total of 15 minutes with a couple of rotations because the temperature was a bit lower and I wanted them to brown a bit more.

Enjoy!