Recipe Wednesday: Bagels

I don't remember having any cravings while pregnant with my first child, PGS, but this time, I can't get enough of bagels and cream cheese (and sweets in general)! I don't remember how much I paid for any of the ingredients that I used in this recipe, but I can almost guarantee that it did not cost me more than $2.99 to make six bagels. And that's how much I normally pay per bag of bagels from the bakery section.

HOMEMADE PLAIN BAGELS

Original found here

Ingredients

4 cups bread flour

1 Tbs sugar

1 ¹/₂ tsp salt

1 Tbs melted coconut oil

2 ¹/₂ tsp active dry yeast

1 ¹/₂ cups warm water

Directions

1. Add yeast and warm water to mixing bowl. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl - dough should feel stiff, but add the extra water if it's really stiff, or you cannot get all the dry flour incorporated.

Top: beginning to mix ingredients
Bottom: mixed ingredients

2. Knead dough for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is uniform and smooth. Cut into 8 equal portions and let rest for 15 minutes.

3. Take one of the dough balls and roll into a "snake" that is a little wider than both of your hands; then loop to make a circle and squish the overlapping ends to make a complete circle. Let rest for 20 minutes. Repeat for each remaining dough ball.

4. Preheat oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a large baking sheet, two if you don't want your bagels to touch while baking. Bring a pot of water to boil.

Boiling bagels

5. Boil each bagel for about a minute, turn over and boil for another minute. Take them out a let dry for a minute and then place them on your oiled baking tray. Repeat until all the bagels are boiled.

This method of cinnamon sugar coating didn't work too well,
so I sprinkled more cinnamon sugar on top after boiling all 8

5.1 Optional: You can add any toppings you like to these. To make sesame, onions, poppy 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 the topping side up onto the baking tray.

6. Bake for 10 minutes and flip the bagels over. Bake for another ten minutes and place on a cooling rack when finished.

7. Let them cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Four cinnamon sugar bagels and four plain

Normally, PGS does not eat bagels, but for whatever reason, he asked for one of the plain ones when they had cooled enough to eat. He didn't want anything on it, but he happily ate a little more than half of a bagel before deciding he'd had enough. That sounds like a glowing recommendation of this recipe! To me, they were as good as any plain bagel. As of the time of writing this entry, I haven't tried the cinnamon sugar ones that I made yet.