The journey from pretzels to summits to bagels has been an interesting one. These cousins are all delicious, and it’s been so interesting to see how they are similar and different!
As usual, I started with the mise en place: a very simple list of ingredients this time.
I kneaded the dough in my KitchenAid mixer for 10 minutes, then set it aside to rise for half an hour.
Once the dough had risen I divided it into 8 pieces and shaped each piece into a little log.
I let the logs rest for 15 minutes before shaping them into bagels.
As suggested in the recipe, I gave my bagels a long rest. 6 hours later I took the bagels out of the fridge.
Toward the end of the rising time I prepared my water bath.
The bagels stuck to the parchment paper when I transferred them to the water bath, which I did not expect, so they got a little mangled in transport. Next time I would grease the parchment paper before resting the bagels. But I did manage to get all the bagels poached and back on their sheet pan.
Half of the bagels were topped with Asiago cheese and the other half were topped with Everything seasoning.
I baked the bagels for the full 25 minutes recommended in the recipe, and I could have probably gone another few minutes longer for the Asiago bagels. But I didn’t want to burn the Everything bagels, so I pulled them all out.
These bagels were delicious. Slightly chewy, but nothing like the grocery store bagels that you have to do jaw workouts to enjoy. The Everything bagels had too much topping on them (I didn’t even know that was possible), so in future I would use half or a third of the topping per bagel. The Asiago bagels were perfect other than possibly needing a slightly longer bake time for additional flavor.
Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out.
A Baker's Education 