Easy Homemade Bagels

I love bagels, pretty much anytime.  I'm a bit of a bagel purist, though.  They're not donuts.  Bagels should not be flavored with berries, cinnamon, fruit or breakfast fare, nor should the cream cheese that goes on them.  If you want a donut, go get one.  If you want Bagels, you've come to the right place!

Yeast Starter is ready to add.

These are easy to make, especially if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook.  But you can do it fairly easily with a little muscle if you don't have one.  There's no really special ingredients that you probably don't already have on hand and, though there are several steps, it doesn't take more than 90 minutes to have them ready for munching.  And no grocery store bagels will taste anywhere near this good!

Ingredients for 8 bagels:

4 cups of bread flour (or regular flour with 1 T of wheat gluten added...you can save a lot of money by using regular flour and adding the gluten yourself...which is all bread flour is, anyway)
1 T Sugar
1 T Yeast
1 1/2 Cups Water, about 100 degrees (warm to the touch, not burning)

1 1/2 tsp Salt

1 T Olive Oil

Begin by making a yeast starter with the warm water, the yeast and sugar.  Put in a 2 or more cup vessel or measuring cup and stir well.  Wait about 10 minutes for it to foam up and make a nice head (see pic).  This will insure that the yeast rises well.

Cut into 8 sections

Mix the dry ingredients well in a large bowl by stirring with a stiff fork or with a stand mixer and dough hook.  I suppose you could do this in a bread machine as well.  Add the oil, then add the yeast/water mixture.  Mix well, then if doing it by hand, knead for about 10 minutes.  If doing it by stand mixer, just let the dough hook do the work for you for about 10 minutes.  The dough should be very stiff, but take on a nice sort of sheen, indicating it's ready for the next step.

Hand-rolling a bagel.

Which is...to let it rest for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, gently roll the dough out into a nice, even log and cut it into 8 sections.  Working with one section at a time, roll it out into a 'snake, making the ends thicker than the middle.  Now lay your upturned palm in the center of the snake, about where your fingers meet your palm, then flip the outer ends over your palm, overlapping them.  Flip your hand and the dough over and roll the two overlapping ends together vigorously to seal them together.  This part takes a bit of practice, don't get discouraged if your bagels come apart in the next step, practice makes perfect and I still mess up a bagel or two once in a while.   Once you've formed the bagel, set it aside and go on to the next dough chunk until you have 8 bagels.

Bagels rising while oven preheats and water boils.

Boil bagels 1 minute, then flip and boil 1 more minute.

Wait 20 minutes for the bagels to rise, while you preheat your oven to 425 and set a large pot of water on your stove and bring it to a vigorous boil.  When the bagels have risen for 20 minutes, drop 2 bagels at a time into the boiling water.  Boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute.  Then remove to cool.

If you want toppings on your bagels, now is the time to add them.  Spread sesame seeds, poppy seeds, crushed red pepper, minced onion, sea salt or whatever toppings you want thinly on a plate, take one of the boiled bagels and flip upside down into the toppings and remove.   When all of the bagels have been boiled and optionally topped, lay them out on a greased cookie sheet and bake them for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, flip, then bake for 10 more minutes.  That's it!!!

Topping a bagel with minced onion.

Plain, poppy seed, minced onion and sesame bagels!