Homemade Bagels

I am a huge fan of King Arthur Flour and their products and recipes. After looking through their recipes looking for some kind of bread to make that didn’t require many ingredients, I decided to attempt homemade bagels for the first time.

Their site had two simple bagel recipes, but one required an overnight starter (I’m not opposed to making a starter, but I wanted to be able to have them for breakfast the next morning). I decided on the simple recipe listed here: Simple Bagel Recipe

The recipe requires making a dough (I used my bread machine dough setting), resting the dough, shaping the bagels and boiling them, and then a final baking.

The full recipe and ingredients are on the KAF site, but a short version is listed here:

Dough

• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 4 cups (17 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon non-diastatic malt powder, brown sugar or barley malt syrup (I only had brown sugar, so that is what I added)
• 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) lukewarm water

Water Bath

• 2 quarts (64 ounces) water
• 2 tablespoons non-diastatic malt powder, brown sugar or barley malt syrup
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

I added all of the ingredients to the bread machine and let it do its thing. I weighed the resulting dough and tried to split it into eight equal-weighted pieces (though I ended up with nine).

After letting the dough rest for 30 minutes, I poked holes in them and shaped them into the standard bagel shape and added them to the boiling water for 3 minutes (2 minutes on one side, 1 minute on the other).

After removing them from their refreshing, warm bath, I placed them on baking sheets in preparation for the oven.

They were baked in the oven at 425 degrees for 25 minutes flipping them once during the baking (the wet bagel dough from the bath makes the oven shoot out a nice bit of steam when you open the door, be careful when flipping them).

After removing the finished product and letting them cool, we finally got to taste them.

They tasted great and even received the Casey seal of approval so this recipe is a keeper. This recipe was incredibly easy to make so I highly recommend giving it a try even if your baking skills are somewhat limited. You will be very pleased with the results.