Breadmaker Bagels

Since I've started baking my own bread I have tried bagels twice. The first time, not so good. The second time, delightful!

The second recipe I tried can be found here. Of course, I changed it a bit. Here's the scoop...

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons honey
1 tsp salt
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp active dry yeast

Directions
1. Place ingredients in bread pan in the order listed. Select dough setting. (You may notice I omitted the gluten - if you are in the US, you should not omit the gluten. In Canada, you can get away with it. I will explain why in a later post).

2. Stop the bread machine 40 minutes after the mixing starts (which is 1 hour and 10 minutes from the start of my breadmaker's dough cycle).

3. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for a few minutes.

4. Cut dough into 9 pieces. The recipe says 8 but I got 9.

5. Roll the pieces into 12'' snakes. Dip both ends of each snake into water and press together to form the bagel. You can also skip rolling out into snakes and you can flatten each piece and then punch a hole in the middle but I found that I couldn't make them big enough this way and the holes filled through. The snakes definitely worked best.

6. Place each ring on a piece of waxed paper sprayed with oil. Cover with another piece also sprayed with oil. You should especially be sure that there is oil on the paper where the dampened ends are going to be placed. A number of my bagels got stuck on the waxed paper because the water made them sticky.


7. Let bagels rest 15-30 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil.

8. Place bagels, 3-4 at a time, in the boiling water. Boil on each side for about 30-40 seconds.

9. Remove bagels and let them drip on paper towel and then place on stoneware baking sheet. The stoneware is definitely not a requirement, but as you may learn, I heart stoneware for baking.

10. Lightly beat an egg and 1 tablespoon of water together. Brush mixture on the tops of each bagel. Sprinkle with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried onions or whatever you'd like.

11. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes. I must say, my oven is a little bit wonky, so you might want to experiment with the temperature and cooking time.

12. Let cool on wire rack and enjoy!