Homemade bagels

Today we made bagels – our first attempt and after the results they won’t be our last.  They were fun and easy to make, beautiful with their caramel sheen, and utterly scrumptious.  I followed this bagel recipe and have included my thoughts on it below.

We started by making the dough – the recipe called for putting all the dry ingredients (bread flour, yeast, sugar and salt) into a food processor and briefly mixing, followed by the hot water.  I used my lovely new Christmas present (the L’Equip 428 Mill Blender) and that worked ok enough, but I’m sure you could do it by hand if you don’t have a mixer.

Instead of covering in clingfilm, we used one of our trusty hotel shower caps (they work brilliantly!) and left it to rise for an hour – this is what it looked like 60 minutes later…

You turn the dough out onto your floured worktop and press it down ‘to expel any gases’.  Next you cut the dough into 10 equal pieces – these will shortly become your bagels.