Homemade Bagels, à la Jo Goldenberg Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making bagels? ›

Is it cheaper to make your own bagels? Yes! It is so much cheaper to make your own breads at home, especially bagels! The ingredients (flour, water, yeast, sugar, honey, and eggs) are pretty cheap to buy compared to the price of premade bagels.

Baking soda makes the water more alkaline, giving the bagels a pretzel-like quality that contributes to their chewiness. Just one teaspoon helps the bagels develop a shiny, dark-brown exterior as they bake. One thing to keep in mind: Keep the water bath at a constant simmer.

This is a sign of over proofing, and when this happened, I ended up with flat bagels (see photo above). Over proofed dough will lose its strength too early and cause the bagels to deflate either during the second rise or while cooking. To correct this, try to find a warm, — not hot — spot to rise your dough.

Bread flour – Because of its high protein content, bread flour makes these homemade bagels delightfully chewy. This recipe also works with all-purpose flour, they're just a bit less chewy than bagels made with bread flour. Maple syrup – It activates the yeast and gives the bagels a hint of sweetness.

a regular bagel is the water you boil them in. Much like a specific vineyard terroir is used to make a wine, certain minerals in New York City tap water are attributed to creating the best bagels. These include low concentrations of calcium and magnesium and a high level of sediment.

Moreira: Usually if you get dense bagels, it's because they were underproofed. But it could also be that your yeast is bad. When you're at home using dry yeast—especially if you don't use it that often—you should always bloom the yeast in a little bit of sugar and water to make sure it's active.

HOW LONG DO FRESH BAGELS LAST? Fresh bagels are best eaten on the same day they're baked. When stored at room temperature in a paper bag, fresh bagels can last for about two to three days. Fresh bagels can last for about three to four months when stored in the freezer, and thawed in a toaster.

Both bagels and bread contain yeast, flour, water, and sugar. However, many bagel recipes use barley malt syrup, a grain-based sweetener, instead of granulated sugar. Bagels also generally contain less water and more flour compared to other bread types, which is why bagels are denser than typical slices of bread.

One of the most important steps in making bagels. is boiling before baking. Baking the dough right away gives a bagel with a matte. finish and an open interior structure. Boiling the bagel pre gelatinizes the crust.

Is it better to boil bagels in honey or baking soda? ›

The Secret To A Perfectly-Browned Bagel Crust

Some people like to add sugar to their bagel boiling water, whether in the form of brown sugar, honey, or malt syrup. While this adds a slight sweetness, it doesn't appear to contribute to the browning process very much. Baking soda, on the other hand, works like a charm.

Boiling bagels give it's distinct chewy and dense texture. It helps it create a thin, slightly crispy texture when you boil it for 30-6o seconds on each side it also contributes to the bagel's shiny appearance. Boiling also prevents over expansion to keep its unique shape.

A brief boil gives bagels a thin and fairly elastic crust that will still allow the bagels rise quite a bit in the oven, resulting in a softer texture. A longer boil and a thicker crust prevents the bagel from rising very much at all, giving you a very dense interior.

When you first make a bagel, the process of adding water to the flour and cooking softens the starch, which makes it more tender and chewable. When bread sits out and loses that water through evaporation, the remaining moisture gets trapped in the starch as it recrystallizes and hardens.

The shorter you boil your bagel, the thinner the layer of cooked dough on the outside. You could technically cook the whole bagel for several minutes. By that time, all the starch will have gelatinized.

A good bagel should have a thin, shiny, crackly crust spotted with the kind of microblisters that you can only get from proper boiling followed by a high-temperature bake. It's these little bubbles that add both surface area and crunch.

Boiling gelatinizes the surface of the bagel, and that's the first thing you need to make sure it'll be crispy on the outside. Then, when you put the bagels in the oven, you want the heat as high as it can go without setting off your fire alarm—so, like, 500°F.

A brief boil gives bagels a thin and fairly elastic crust that will still allow the bagels rise quite a bit in the oven, resulting in a softer texture. A longer boil and a thicker crust prevents the bagel from rising very much at all, giving you a very dense interior.

If you want a thinner crust and airier texture in your bagels, shorten the boiling time slightly (around 45 seconds, instead of the 60 seconds called for in the recipe). The shorter boil means the crust has less opportunity to preset, which allows more rising, and thus a “fluffier” bagel.