Homemade Bagels

I was dying to make pizza bagels but didn't have any bagels, so i decided my little boy and i were gonna make some.

Now i have made some in the past and they were such a chore, so i was a little apprehensive about it, but i decided to give it a go anyway.

So here is the recipe i found with my own pictures added.

I didn't start taking pictures until i already had the dough done, sorry! I will do better next time, i promise!

Ingredients:

4 cups bread flour

1 Tbls sugar

1 1/2 tsps salt

1 Tbls vegetable oil

2 tsps instant yeast

1-1/4- 1-1/2 cups of warm water

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. You don't have to worry about soaking the yeast when you use instant yeast (most yeast sold these days is instant yeast). The dough should feel stiff, but add the extra water if it's really stiff, or you can't get all the dry flour incorporated.

Plop the dough down onto the counter, and knead for about ten minutes, or until the dough is uniform and smooth.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls, and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

Now, take each of the dough balls and using two hands, roll it into a little snake on the counter. When the snake is longer than the width of your two hands, wrap it around your dominant roiling hand. 

The dough rope should be wrapped so the overlapping ends are together at your palm, near the start of your fingers. Now take the two overlapping ends, and use your palm to squish/roll these two ends together. 

Once the dough is fused, you should have a perfectly circular bagel-to-be! 

This is the only part of the process that can take a little practice before your bagels will look really professional. Don't get discouraged if they don't look perfect, it just takes practice!

Let your bagels rest on the counter for about 20 minutes, and meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil, and grease a large baking tray lightly. You can just rub a splash of vegetable oil and rub it around.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

After the 20 minute wait, your bagels will start to look puffy, and it's time to get them boiling! Add them as many at a time as you can to your boiling water without crowding them. Boil for about a minute, turn them over, and boil for another minute. 

Take them out and let dry for a minute and then place them on your oiled baking tray. Repeat until all the bagels are boiled.

At this point you can add any toppings you like to these. To make sesame, onion, popps seed, caraway, etc bagels, just have a dry plate ready with the seed or spice topping spread out on it. After the bagels have come out of the boiling water, place them face down onto the topping and then place them topping side up onto the baking tray. Bake and flip as for plain bagels.

I did plain ones because i intend to turn them into pizzas for dinner;o)

As you can see, i boiled 2 of them just a little too long and they got too puffy and began to separate. After half are boiled, either reduce the heat or reduce the time on each side. The final 2 i only did for 45sec on one side and 30sec on the other.

At this time you can do and egg white wash (1 egg white mixed with 1/4 cup water and whipped up) over the bagels to give them that glossy look, but its not necessary. 

Add the tray to the oven, and after 10 minutes, flip the bagels over, bake for another ten minutes; and they're done! 

Let them cool for at least 20 minutes.

And there ya go! Beautiful homemade bagels! I love these if only because i know exactly what went into them, and thats important to me. Its my job to make sure my men eat as healthy as possible;o)