Bagels Revisited

Bagels are a big deal to me. Way way back (back before Blogger and a gagillion personal food blogs), freshman year in college, the first time I had access to "fast" internet connections and free domain space I even createded a website (or "web page" as we called it back then - I'm talking back in the dancing baby days) "Ethan's Don't Forget to Boil the Bagel Page". I was also fairly convinced that egg bagels were going to take over the world - and I wasn't totally convinced that was a bad idea. Maybe that's why I am now on a journey...Baking Bread to Save the World.

Enough. Point is, I like bagels. I hate crappy round rolls with holes that you get at the grocery store. Since the closest, good bagels are about a 2.5 hour drive from home, it's high time we nail down this bagel baking business.

I made a batch of bagels from my NY Grandpa's recipe a while back, and while I will make a few changes the next time I make them, they were very good, real bagels...chewy with a bit of a crust and great flavor (from the bagel itself, not some ridiculous blueberry flavor).

I am interested in coming up with the perfect bagel recipe so I have been pouring through recipes online. I came across the same recipe on two great food blogs (Eating out Loud, and Cafe Fernando). They both had used Peter Reinhart’s recipe from his classic book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" which is actually a book I have, but had largely been intimidated by - all these levains, and poolishes, and breads that take three days to make, assuming you've spent the last 23 years tenderly seeing to the needs of your precious sourdough starter. Now that I found it in "quick and easy" comfort of the internet, I was ready to take it on.


Alas, the venerable Peter Reinhart has let me down. After mixing, and kneading, and kneading, and kneading, an overnight retard, a quick dip in the boiling pot, and baking at such ridiculously high heats considering the weather around here (when will it drop below 100 again?) what did we get to have for breakfast? Round rolls with a hole in the middle. Decent rolls (especially when covered with Rosemary and Grey Sea Salt, or Pecorino and Crushed Black Pepper), but certainly not bagels, certainly not Grandpa's bagels.


So it is decided...Grandpa was not messing around. I think a tweak or two and Grandpa's recipe will produce as fine a bagel as you can get this side of NYC.

This Weekend - I Baked

I have been wanting to do a lot more baking and cooking lately. It has just been too busy with kids, work, event like American Idol, etc. But this weekend, the stars aligned and I was able to spend some time in the kitchen. Actually, it is mostly due to my beautiful wife who was kind enough to stay on top of the weekend chores and the kids so I could get some yummy things from the oven to our bellies. And, speaking of stars...they were gorgeous last night. R and I stepped outside after the kids went to bed and the sky was brilliant with glowing stars, we hung out outside long enough to see a shooting star together, which has always been a thing for us.

Back to the baking. This weekend, I made...

a brotform loaf of semolina bread,

a classic diner style layer cake with homemade peach jam and spiced whipped cream,

and bagels from Grandpa S's recipe

I also made some zuchinni pickles from the Zuni Cafe cookbook to put on hamburgers at my mom's house tomorrow.


So first off, the brotform. This was basically because I needed space in the fridge. I had some semolina dough from ABi5MaD and I let it rise in the brotform I got from D and M. This was a much smaller loaf than the last one, but it worked just fine. We had it as an appetizer with some rosemary oil and balsamic last night.

The cake was also for last night - we celebrated my Dad's birthday.

They had just dropped off some fresh peaches for us the day or two before so I thought it would be fun to incorporate them into the cake.

I have been looking for a go-to cake recipe lately and have been playing with one from Dorie Greenspan that was used in a past DB challenge. I made it a few nights ago as mini lavender bundt cakes, but I forgot the vanilla extract and they were obviously a bit flat (sorry Cat and Heath). I am liking the cake, it's got a great texture and a hint of lemon from the zest that is blended with sugar and then creamed with the butter.

This time I used vanilla and walnut extract and used the homemade peach jam (which was just cooked fresh peaches with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove) and covered the whole cake with whipped cream (whipped with powdered sugar for added stability) flavored with a hint of the walnut extract. It ended up looking like a classic diner cake. I really liked using the whipped cream - I really really like whipped cream, so covering a cake (I really really like cake too) in whipped cream is definitely the way to go. I can do without buttercream for a while.

I have also been wanting to bake more bread lately and I thought trying out Grandpa's bagel recipe would be perfect. My grandpa was a New York fireman way back, and used to tell me cool stories about growing up playing stickball in the streets. Now some people swear that you can't make a good bagel outside of New York because there is something special in the water, but Grandpa and I gave that theory a run for its money today.

To make bagels, you make a basic bread dough with salt and a bit of sugar, and knead the heck out of it

let it rise,

reknead, then shape into the the classic bagel "oh".

After a brief rise, they are boiled in salted, malted, water. I used sugar, because I didn't have any malt in the house. Boiling is key. You can't make bagels without boiling, so don't even try, unless you are a huge fan of round rolls. Steaming bagels doesn't work either, they don't get that perfect crust and chewy inside without being boiled.


They boil for about three minutes then you take them out and put them on a greased cookie sheet and you can add your favorite toppings at this point. That is of course assuming to don't think blueberries, or sundried tomatoes are the perfecting topping. Chocolate chip and blueberry are muffin flavors, not bagels. Today I went with sesame seeds, caraway seeds, and some gray salt.


They'll sit again for a few minutes and then head into a preheated (425) oven for about 25-30 minutes. I did add extra steam when I first put them in and I left my baking stone in the oven to regulate temp since I knew I would have to open the oven to rotate the two trays.


After an agonizing wait to let them cool, R and I finally tried some. They're fantastic. I will keep playing with the recipe, but I won't buy bagels in the Valley ever again. They are delicious, dense, chewy with a crust. I can't wait to toast one up in the morning with a schmear of cream cheese.