Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
I've made bagels quite a few times in the past two years, and tried various recipes with varying success. The recipe I settled on appears below. It is essentially the same as Maurizio Leo's recipe, but with the addition of extra gluten, and barley malt syrup when boiling the dough.
I believe these bagels are every bit as good as what one can buy in New York, with a chewy crumb that is not too dense, and a really crispy and thin crust.
Making these stretches over three days and is more elaborate than most recipes, but the effort is worth it.
Ingredients
This recipe makes 12 fairly large (138 g) bagels, or 14 standard-size (118 g) ones.
Levain:
Method
I believe these bagels are every bit as good as what one can buy in New York, with a chewy crumb that is not too dense, and a really crispy and thin crust.
Making these stretches over three days and is more elaborate than most recipes, but the effort is worth it.
Ingredients
This recipe makes 12 fairly large (138 g) bagels, or 14 standard-size (118 g) ones.
Levain:
- 116 g Bread flour
- 58 g Water
- 23 g Active sourdough starter
- 848 g Bread flour
- 493 g Water
- Levain from previous day (197 g)
- 39 g Vita wheat gluten
- 29 g Caster sugar
- 29 g Barley malt syrup
- 18 g Salt
- 7 g Diastatic malt powder
- 2 tbsp barley malt syrup
or - 15 g of sodium hydroxide per litre of boiling water (See this post for how to work with it safely.)
- 2 tsp coarse sea salt
- 2 tsp coarse granulated garlic
- 2 tsp coarse granulated onion
- 2 tsp sesame seed
- 2 tsp poppy seed
Method
- The evening of day 1, prepare the levain by mixing the flour, water and sourdough starter. The levain has only 50% hydration, so it forms a quite dense dough ball.
Leave the levain in a covered container overnight. It will easily triple in size, so make sure the container is large enough. - In the morning of day 2, prepare the dough by mixing the levain and all the remaining ingredients. You will need a strong dough mixer, or be prepared for a good work-out.
Mix the dough for five minutes on low until it comes together, and another three minutes on medium to assist gluten development. You should end up with a firm and silky-smooth dough. - Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest, covered, for 90 minutes.
- Give the dough a few slap and folds, shape into a ball again, and rest for another 90 minutes.
- Divide into 12 or 14 portions, depending on your size preference. Shape the portions into balls, cover, and let them relax for another five to ten minutes.
- Shape each ball into a bagel. You can follow this short video for how to shape bagels. However, I like Dan Souza's method that adds a twist to the dough rope before closing the ends. This is also where I learned about the option of adding extra gluten. (You can see the shaping at 4:40. I wouldn't bother with the rolling pin though; the method shown in the first video is far more efficient.)
- Line your baking sheets with Silpats and add a generous amount of coarse corn meal before placing the bagels.
- Cover your baking sheets and let the bagels rise at room temperature for 2 hours. They should puff a little bit in that time, but nowhere near to their final size.
- Enclose the sheets with large plastic bags, so they are airtight and place into the fridge overnight.
- In the morning of day 3, pre-heat your oven to 240 ºC convection, or 260 ºC conventional. Place a cookie sheet or cast iron skillet in the bottom of the oven to pre-heat as well.
- Add about four liters of water to a big pot and bring to a boil.
- Add two tablespoons of barely malt syrup to the boiling water.
Alternatively, you can boil the bagels in a 1.5% sodium hydroxide solution. They will get a much darker color that way, similar to Brezen. - Drop the bagels two or three at a time into the boiling water. They may or may not float, depending on how far fermentation proceeded on the previous day before you placed the bagels into the fridge. If they sink to the bottom, you can take them out again, and give the whole lot another hour or two to warm up and proof a bit more. However, I generally don't bother. There is enough oven spring even if the dough is a little denser than water. (As always, observe what happened this time and adjust accordingly for next time.)
If the bagels float, boil them for 30 seconds, then flip and boil the other side for 30 seconds.
If they sink, boil them for 40 seconds.
To fish them out, a spider works very well.
- Turn the hot and wet bagels out onto your baking sheet (still covered with Silpat and corn meal) and sprinkle with your topping.
- Boil about 0.5 liters of water in a kettle. Pour the boiling water into the pre-heated sheet pan or skillet and bake your bagels with steam for ten minutes. (If using a conventional oven, I recommend to bake the bagels in two separate batches, to get more even browning.)
- After ten minutes, remove the steaming pan and bake for five more minutes.
- Drop the temperature to 210 ºC convection or 230 ºC conventional and bake for five more minutes, for a total baking time of 20 minutes. Keep an eye on how quickly the bagels are browning; you may need to reduce the temperature earlier, or bake them a little longer, depending on your oven.
- Pull the bagels when they have the right color and, the instant they come out of the oven, spray them with a fine mist of water from a spray bottle. This helps to make the crust shiny and crispy.
- Let the bagels cool on a rack.
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