Making bagels...

In my attempt to keep grocery expenses down this month, I am making my own bagels each week. I was a little leery of doing this because my first attempt at homemade bagels a few years back was less than satisfactory. The first week I made plain bagels and last week I made cinnamon raisin. We have decided that we prefer the cinnamon raisin bagels the best. I will show you how I did it and then give the recipe.

After the dough sat in a bowl and doubled in size for about an hour. I divided the dough into 8 balls of dough. Then I rested the balls of dough for about 5 minutes. After resting for 5 minutes, I stuck my thumb in the middle of the dough ball, and then I spun the dough around my thumb to make the hole. The hole really does need to be about 2 inches across otherwise you will have bagels with no middle hole. This happened to me the first week that I made bagels.



Once the bagels all have their center holes they need to rest 10 minutes. Before I started making holes in the middle of the dough balls, I set a pot of water to boil on the stove. I do add some honey to the water. After the water is boiling, I start dropping bagels into the water 2 at a time and poach them for 1 minute turning over once or twice during the poaching.



After poaching the bagels, I drain them on a rack set over a jelly roll pan.




Then I move the poached bagels to a cookie sheet with parchment paper. I would have liked to put an egg white wash on my bagels, but I was tight on eggs and didn't want to give up one to the bagels. I think they would look better with the egg white wash.



Here are the baked bagels.



Some are nearly perfect looking.



Others...not so much.



Here is the recipe I used.

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tbsp. dry yeast
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp salt (yes, you really need this much)
2 cups unbleached white flour
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
8 cups of water for boiling
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp water

Add ins...1+ Tbsp cinnamon and 1/2 + cup raisins or whatever you think you might want.

1. In stand mixer, mix water, honey and yeast. Let stand 3 minutes.

2. Add half of the flour to the yeast mixture and combine. Add salt and then remaining flour. Add the remaining flour a little at a time until the dough pulls away cleanly from the sides of the mixer.

3. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes in a Bosch mixer, you may need a little more time to make a smooth, firm dough ball. I added the cinnamon and raisins toward the end of the kneading time. Place dough in bowl, cover and let rise to double.

4. Punch down dough. Divide and shape in 8-12 balls. We make 8 because we like larger bagels. Allow to rest 5 minutes.

5. Bring water to boil. Make a hole in each ball of dough and pull open about 2 inches, amking a bagel shape. Placethe shape dough on a cookie sheet (I use a greased flexible cutting board) for 10 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Drop 2-3 bagels at a time into boiling water for about 45 second to 1 minute.

7. Drain poached bagels on a wire rack. Mix egg white and water; brush tops with egg white mixture and top with optional toppings, if using (seseame seeds, poppy seeds, etc.). Place bagels on greased (or parchment papered) baking sheet.

8. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. You can flip them over once if you are not putting additional topping on them or you can turn them on the sheet if you are using topping. I, however, did neither of these. The original recipe said to bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Tips: Making the dough balls as round as possible seems to help shape the bagels. Keeping the bagels round also keeps the water from sitting in nooks and crannies on the bagels.

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jennie

TIGHT AUGUST BUDGET

The month of August has put us in a tight place money wise. We have annual bills due this month, and I need to save us every possible penny.

I have planned out each meal for the month. Yes, that is for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have also decided for ease of planning to make one breakfast and lunch plan and rotate it each week of the month. This has made things much easier for me who tends to over think everything.

Part of this plan includes me making English muffins and bagels each week. Buying them is out of the question. That would add $10 to my bill, and I already own all the staples necessary to make these items. I have a tried and true English muffin recipe thanks to Alton Brown of Good Eats fame. I was a little leery of making bagels. I did attempt making bagels once. It was several years ago, and my results were less than spectacular. Well, after searching and searching I was able to come up with a usable recipe. I actually combined a few recipes that I found on line and one that a friend sent me. I made a couple of errors, but they turned out great. One of my errors was not making the whole big enough, so I ended up with holeless bagels. It was a little strange, but it did not affect the taste. I also thought they could have been a little sweeter. So, I will adjust that next time. I told the children that next week I would try making them cinnamon raisin bagels.

Since this is only the end of week 1, my motivation is strong. I hope this continues to be the case. Only time will tell.

Blessings,
Jennie