Hi Bold Bakers.
As you know I’ve got a fascination with bread making but I have yet to tackle the
almighty New York style bagel.
Why?
Well for 2 reasons, number one I’m not from New York.
2, they say what makes it really unique is the water in New York and I haven’t got
that either.
But what I do have is a recipe I tried out on my neighbors Sharon and Howard who know
New York style bagels and they gave me the thumbs up.
So I’m gonna share this recipe with you now.
So we’re gonna get started with our kitchen mixer.
So first things first let’s add in our flour.
Now for bagels you wanna us bread flour, it just kind of gives you that dense chewy bagel
that we know and love.
If you don’t have bread flour you can use all purpose flour, but I really strongly recommend,
for best results use bread flour.
Ok next we’re gonna add in a little bit of sugar because bagels always have that little
sweetness.
Next a little salt, super important when it comes to your breadmaking.
So next we’re gonna add in our yeast.
I use instant dried yeast which can be added to the flour.
If you buy active dried yeast it’ll have to be activated In your liquid, so just make
that note.
I’m gonna put it on the other side of the bowl away from the salt.
Ok so now we’re gonna turn it on to a medium speed and we’re going to add in our tepid
water.
This is kind of blood temperature.
If you put your finger in it you can’t feel the water around your finger which means it’s
the perfect temperature, so just drizzle this in.
And you’re going to want to add in all of this water.
You’re gonna want to knead this for around ten minutes that’s why it’s really important
that you have a mixer, it would be really difficult to do this by hand, because our
next step is to add in more flour.
I know that sounds kinda weird, adding in more flour after our dough.
But if you think about a bagel it’s really dense and what we’re trying to do is incorporate
as much flour as we possibly can.
It’ll give you that lovely heavy dough, that’s what we’re going for a heavy dough.
So here I have some flour, add that in, little by little as it’s mixing.
So I’ve made these bagels a few times now and roughly I’m able to incorporate around
3-4 cups of flour.
When your machine really starts to struggle with the kneading, that’s how you know you’ve
got a good bit of flour.
Kinda hops around the counter.
So as your mixing your flour you might notice that it’s getting harder for your dough
to come together because it’s getting dryer.
If that happens and it really isn’t combining, splash in a little bit of water in there,
and those few drops will help it come together.
And by doing this you’ll be able to add even more flour in.
So I’ve got a good bit of flour in there and now my dough is cleaning the bottom of
the bowl, so now I’m gonna turn my machine off and put it out on the table and just kind
of shape it a little bit.
Now I can tell already by touching the dough that it’s really dense and heavy, look at
that, it’s almost hard for me to shape.
I’m pretty sure this means it’s gonna make an excellent bagel.
So there you go give it a rough little shape, then we’re gonna bring back our bowl that
we mixed it in.
Put in a little bit of olive oil.
And then go in with your dough and just rub it around the bowl.
So the reason we oiled the bowl is so that when your dough proofs it’ll glide up the
side of the bowl.
If you don’t grease it, your dough will struggle and remember this is a living thing
you don’t want it to struggle.
So just make life easy on it.
There you go, nice and coated.
So we’re just gonna cove this with some cling wrap, nice and tight so no air gets
at it.
Dough doesn’t like air.
Then lay over a nice clean towel.
So here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna set it to the side and let it proof
for around an hour or so.
It’s a really lovely dough, it’ll get big and fluffy and then we’ll come back
and shape it.
So it’s been an hour and my dough has doubled in size, this is perfect.
My kitchen is nice and warm so it happened pretty fast.
So what we’re gonna do is turn it out onto the table and with a dough divider or a knife,
we’re gonna divide the dough into 8 pieces.
Just do this as evenly as you can, each piece is gonna be around 4 oz if you’re measuring
them.
So now we’re gonna shape them, let me show you this technique it’s really easy.
What you want to make sure is there’s no flour on your surface.
Usually we say on a floured surface, not here, not when you’re shaping bread because you
want traction on the table.
So just push your dough into your surface, no flour, if there’s flour on it it will
slip.
Push it in until you have a nice smooth ball.
So with bagels you do want make them nice and smooth like this with no creases because
they will show up in the finished project.
So this is my favorite part, the shaping of the dough.
What you do is take a little roll, put your fingers through the middle then work your
way around.
And it’ll create kind of an o, that’s what we’re going for, a little o.
So don’t be afraid to stretch this, nice and big, and you want to make sure to get
the sides even and a nice big hole in the middle, around an inch and a half or so wide.
You do want to do this step nice and fast so your dough doesn’t get a skin on it.
So just go on and shape them all.
So the reason a bagel has a hole in the middle is actually so they bake evenly.
And just note when you make these bagels at home, the hole will get smaller so you want
to factor that in as well.
Ok lovely, there’s our bagels.
So one more time really quickly, we’re gonna go back over these bagels and just give them
another little bit of a pull because what happens is as they rest, the gluten kind of
retracts and the hole gets smaller, so you just want to make sure they’re the right
shape.
These are great, the holes are around an inch and a half wide so these are perfect.
So now what i’m gonna do is lay over my cling wrap and a nice clean tea towel, and
just cover up to make sure the dough doesn’t get any air on it.
And we’re gonna let these rest for around 20 minutes and let them proof a bit.
So it’s been 20 minutes and in that time I’ve put a big pot of water and have it
at a steady boil right now.
And if you look at our bagels they have risen up nicely, the holes have filled in a little
bit, and these are ready now to go into the water.
You want to carefully pick them up, one by one, and pop them in there.
I’m only gonna put four in there at a time to give them space to cook.
So here’s the secret, with a New York bagel with a chewy crust, you want to boil them
for around 2 minutes on each side.
If you boil them less they won’t be as chewy and we want to get that nice chew.
So these have been going for 2 minutes, I’m gonna go in and flip them over and do another
2 on this side.
So my bagels are done, with a slotted spoon I’m going to shake off the excess water
and place them onto my baking sheet with parchment paper.
Don’t worry about them being wet, because the dough is hot it’s going to evaporate.
And then just finish cooking off the rest of your bagels.
Once they’re all boiled get them onto your tray.
Now I want to show you something, remember when I said it’s really important to get
that ball nice and smooth?
If you don’t these creases, they end up looking a little bit knobbly like this.
It tastes the same but it does change the appearance of them.
So you do want to get them as smooth as you can.
But don’t worry because we’re actually gonna cover those up and you can’t see them.
So now let’s talk toppings, you can leave them plain, you can put on sesame seeds whatever.
I am a huge huge fan of an everything bagel.
So in here I’ve got dried onion, sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds.
You can even put caraway seeds in here whatever you like.
So what you want to do is glaze one bagel, pick it up and dip it into the seeds.
You can sprinkle it on but I’ve found that dipping it in you just get more stuff.
And I’m a big fan of the stuff.
Ok so keep going one at a time, glaze and dip.
Glaze and dip.
Ok so we’re finally ready to bake these guys off and all that information can be found
at BiggerBolderBaking.com.
But here are some I made yesterday and let me tell you something about bagels, they actually
like to sit a day.
So if you make them the night before, overnight they get kind of sticky and the texture gets
better and the flavor gets better, I never make mine and eat mine the same day.
Check that out.
If that is not a legit New York style bagel, I don’t know what is.
So I’m gonna stop talking and cut one open, you see the way it’s kind of springy and
squishy, that’s from the boiling and that’s what gives it that chew.
And if I push the dough, it is firm and dense.
So all of these things I want in my bagel.
So we’re gonna keep this classic, here I have some of my homemade cream cheese which
you can find on the website.
And on my website right now I’ve got different flavors of cream cheese that you can have
with your bagels.
And I’m going to smear, or schmear, schmear it all over my bagel.
I got it on my face.
It’s chewy, it’s dense, it’s thick, it’s heavy.
I’ve got a good sense as to what will be a hit on Bigger Bolder Baking and I’m pretty
sure this is gonna be one of them.
Be sure to check out all my other bread videos and I’ll see you back here really soon.