Boiled Dough. Chewy, Chewy. Yum.

What is it about boiled dough smothered in salt that is so deeply comforting? One bite into an oven-fresh, soft, chewy bagel and my whole body relaxes into calm. My very cells moan, "mmmmm". That's good stuff.

This week I have been boiling a lot of dough - some twisted and some rolled - and my belly has been happy.

A few days ago I came home to my King Arthur Flour order waiting lovingly on my doorstep. I ordered some items that I can't find at my local store, including the hi-gluten flour needed for bagels. So today I cracked open Baking with Julia and used my whole shiny new bag of flour making bagels.

The Recipe
(my notes in italics)

The measurements below will yield approximately 10 large bagels. However, it takes a lot of focused time to make bagels and they freeze really well, so I doubled the recipe. I kneaded the dough in my mixer in two batches to avoid over-heating the motor. I also made smaller bagels - 3 oz each - which yielded about 27.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 1/4 cups tepid water (80 degrees to 90 degrees F)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 to 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper (pepper is optional - and I opted out. Black pepper on cinnamon sugar bagels? Yuck. No thanks!)
• 6 cups (approximately) high-gluten flour or bread flour (I have made bagels using high-gluten and bread flour, and using the high-gluten makes a noticeable difference. Even though the flour is more expensive, I think it's worth it.)

Directions:

1. Brush the inside of a large bowl with some of the melted butter; set aside. Reserve the remaining melted butter for coating the top of the dough.
2. Proof the yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water in the mixer’s bowl.
3. Fit the machine with the dough hook and add the remaining 2 cups water, the sugar, shortening and salt. Mix on low to blend.
4. With the machine still on low, gradually add 5 1/2 to 6 cups of the flour, mixing for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the ingredients are blended. Increase the mixer speed to medium and knead for about 6 minutes, adding additional flour by the tablespoon until the dough is smooth and elastic. At this point, the dough may still be slightly sticky and it may not clean the sides and bottom of the bowl completely –that’s OK.

Rise:

1. Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to the buttered mixing bowl.
2. Brush the top of the dough with a little melted butter, cover the bowl with buttered plastic wrap, and top with a kitchen towel. Let the dough rise at room temperature for about 1 hour, or until it doubles in bulk. (Although I used the butter as directed, I will not do this again. I think that, particularly for bagels, spray oil works better. The butter made the dough too greasy.)

Chilling & Shaping the dough:

1. Deflate the dough, cover as before, and refrigerate for 4 hours, or, if it’s more convenient, overnight. At this point, the dough can be well wrapped and refrigerated for up to 2 days.
   Note: I let the dough refrigerate for a couple hours, then took it out and shaped the bagels. I placed them all on greased cookie sheets, covered with plastic wrap, and put back in the refrigerator until the next morning. When I got up this morning all I had to do was boil and bake and I had fresh from the oven bagels in about an hour.
2. Deflate the dough and transfer it to a lightly floured work surface. Cut the dough (you will want each piece to be about 4.5-5 oz. for large bagels and 3 oz. for smaller bagels).Work with 1 piece at a time and cover the remaining pieces with a towel.
3. To form a bagel and develop the gluten cloak that will give it its structure, draw up the dough from the bottom, stretch it, and pinch it at the top.
4. Keep pulling the dough up and pinching it until you have a perfectly round, tightly packed ball of dough with a little topknot or pleat at the top. Turn the dough over so that the knot is against the work surface and plunge your index finger into the center of the dough. Wiggle your finger around in the hole to stretch it, then lift the bagel, hook it over the thumb of one hand and the index finger of the other, and start rotating the dough, circling your thumb and finger and elongating the hole to a diameter of 2 to 2 1/2 inches.

Boiling the Bagels:

1. When you’re ready to make the bagels, position an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Spray baking sheets with vegetable oil and dust them with cornmeal. For added flavor, use one or all of the suggested topping ingredients in combination with the cornmeal to dust the peel or the sheets.
2. While the oven preheats, fill a stockpot with water and bring the water to a rapid boil. Add about 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon baking soda to the boiling water.
3. With a large slotted skimming spoon or slotted spatula, lower the bagels, one at a time, into the boiling water. Don’t crowd them – the bagels should swim around in the water without touching one another; it’s better to boil them in batches than to cram them into the pot all at one time. The bagels will sink to the bottom of the pot when you put them in, then rise to the top. Once the bagels have surfaced, boil for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on each side, flipping then over gently with the skimmer. Remove the bagels, shaking the skimmer over the stock pot to get rid of some of the excess water, and put them on the baking sheet with the unfloured towel, keeping the smoothest side of the bagel up.
4. Keeping the smoothest sides up, transfer the bagels to the peel or prepared baking sheet. (Work quickly because the wet bagels have a tendency to stick to the towel.)
5. Whisk the 2 egg whites and 1 teaspoon cold water together until the whites are broken up, then push the glaze through a sieve and brush each bagel with the glaze. Try not to let the glaze drip onto the baking sheet or peel, or it will glue down the bagels. Don’t worry if the bagels look wrinkled – they’ll smooth out in the oven. Brush with another coat of glaze and, if you’re using a topping, or more than one, sprinkle it, or them, evenly over the bagels now. (See note on toppings at bottom of page).

Baking the Bagels:

The original recipe calls for baking the bagels in a steam bath by adding 1/4 cup icewater onto the oven floor as soon as the bagels go in the oven. I did this for the first batch but didn't notice that it made a difference, so I didn't bother with it after that.

Another adjustment I made was the baking time. The recipe says to bake for 25 minutes, and then for another 5 minutes with the oven off. I did this with the first batch and they were way overdone. The directions below reflect the adjusted baking time.

1. Put the bagels into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. Rotate baking sheet, and bake for another 5-8 minutes until bagels are golden brown on top.
2. While the first batch of bagels is baking, boil and glaze more bagels just as you did the first batch.

Toppings I used:

• Cinnamon sugar (I mixed ~ 1 TBL butter, 1/2 C. sugar and 2 TBL cinnamon, enough for about 6 bagels)
• Sesame seed and salt
• "Everything", from King Arthur Flour's everything bagel mix
• Plain, brushed with the egg glaze

Let cool for at least 10 minutes before devouring!

Because one can never have enough chewy carby goodness, I also made pretzels. They were delicious. You can find the recipe here.

Happy eating!