Homemade Bagels
I absolutely love the smell of fresh-baked bread. There is nothing more inviting than the smell of homemade bagels, fresh buns, or artisan bread.
Is your mouth watering yet?
Just do the thing…
For years, I was intimidated by making bagels.
Boiling it?
How does that work!?
Doesn’t the dough just disintegrate and fall apart?
What if I over boil it or under boil it? Is that even a thing?
Do you do the same thing? Talk yourself out of trying something before you even attempt it?
I do this all the time.
But typically, once I actually allow myself to try something, its not as hard as my fears led me to believe.
And, lets be honest, if your first (or third or tenth) batch of bagels is a fail – what is the big deal? Sure, you will have less flour and no bagels to eat… But no one needs to feel like a failure for trying something new.
With each mistake in the kitchen, I have learned something new. Something new about the process of baking and something new about myself (like how impatient I am which then results in underbaked cookies. ugh!).
So just do the thing…
p.s. Did you know that homemade bagels make delicious sandwiches?
Homemade Bagels
With all that being said, lets make some bagels.
One great thing about bagels is that you actually want to work quite a bit of flour into the dough. So often, the dough needs to be at a high hydration level and that can result in a sticky dough which is hard to work with. For homemade bagels, you actually work with a dough that isn’t very sticky at all! The denser dough makes for a dough that is easier to work with (at least in my humble opinion).
Plain Bagels
Ingredients
- 2 tsp dry active yeast
- 4 tsp sugar
- 1 1/4 cup warm water
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Mix together water, yeast, and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes
- Add flour and salt and mix on low using a dough hook until everything is combined (approximately 2 minutes)
- Knead dough by hand or using your stand mixer (dough may be too heavy for some stand mixers.)
- Place dough into an oiled bowl, turn the dough to coat, and then allow to rise, covered, for 1 hour.
- Punch down your dough and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
- Bring a wide pot of water to a boil. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and prepare your baking sheets.
- On a floured surface, divide the dough into 6-8 pieces (6 XL bagels or 8 medium sized bagels). Form balls and then press your finger and thumb together through the middle to create a hole and form the bagel shape.
- Reduce heat of boiling water to medium-high and add 2 or 3 bagels to the water. Boil on each side for 45 – 60 seconds. (The longer you boil, the chewier the bagel will be). Remove bagels, place onto prepared baking sheets and repeat with the rest of the bagels.
- Using a pastry brush, brush the top of your bagels with milk (or an egg wash, if you prefer).
- Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool.
- Enjoy!
If you would like to transform these delicious homemade bagels into other kinds, it is super simple! Check out my everything bagel recipe to see how I took this simple recipe and transformed it.
A little visual…
Are you a visual learner? This video is by no means a tutorial but I do show how I make these bagels – hopefully this helps you out a bit.
If you would like a more in depth tutorial about how I make bagels and other recipes, please let me know. I would be more than happy to be able to create and share these things with you.
-Enjoy!
p.s. do you like everthing bagels? Check out this recipe.
