Bagels

Recipe

Homemade bagels - Sally's baking recipes

• I used Trader Joe's Everything but the bagel seasoning

• I opted for the brown sugar instead of white, to give it more of a chew

How it turned out

This is the 3rd or 4th time I've made bagels, and it's been the best attempt by far.

I prefer the dense chew of Montréal bagels to the breadiness of New York ones. This recipe yields a bagel with a beautiful chewy texture, but still has a nice crunchy crust. And you just can't go wrong with everything bagel seasoning on top.

What I learned

Flour matters. In previous attempts, I used AP flour because that was all that I had. This time I used bread flour. The higher protein content definitely contributed to a chewier texture.

How you shape it matters. I tend to come back to this recipe because of its shaping technique. Instead of rolling out a long tube and trying to join the ends — which I find leaves me with wonky looking bagels — this recipes suggests you flatten the dough into a disc, and poke a hole in the middle with your fingers. I find it creates a much more consistent circle.

Patience matters. While dense is good when it comes to Montréal-style bagels, you don't want it to be too dense. That can happen if you don't let it proof enough, or you take it out of the oven too soon. So now I let the dough proof for the full 90 minutes, and I bake them for closer to 30 minutes until they turn a nice golden brown.

Parchment > silicone baking mat. One of my baking sheets was lined with parchment paper, the other with a silicone baking mat. The parchment paper yielded a much more even bake, while the silicone baking mat left the bottoms quite pale and a bit under-baked.