Bagel Recipe

Bagels are literally one of my favorite foods in the world. My absolute favorite are Bruegger’s Bagels but I really like all kinds and can eat them any time of the day. I had heard lately about some of my friends in America and in Nepal making bagels from scratch. I decided to give it a try and see how they came out. To my surprise they turned out AWESOME. There are many steps to making bagels but truthfully this was SO much easier than I thought it was going to be. Here is the recipe that I used today (I was originally going to use a different recipe from my friend Kim's blog because it sounded delicious and the pictures of her bagels looked great but my Internet was out when I needed the recipe so I used one my friend Judy had already given me. Give both of them a try and see which you like better!). The recipe I made, made 9 medium size bagels. They were delicious! Enjoy!

BAGELS

Combine:

1 Tbsp dry yeast

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup warm water

Add until knead-able:

3 cups of flour (can use 1 cup whole wheat if you want)

Variation: Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

1/2 cup raisins - soak in hot water for 10 minutes. Drain and dust in mixture of 1 Tbsp of cinnamon and 1 Tbsp of sugar. Add this with the flour above.

Directions:
Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead until elastic (8-10 minutes). Place into greased bowl and turn over so top of dough is also greased. Cover with a clean towel and let rise in a warm place 30-40 minutes. Punch down dough. Separate into pieces (depending on how large you want your bagels...remember they will rise again). Shape into balls and work in toppings of choice (sesame, poppy or caraway seeds or minced onion if desired). Stick your thumb through to make 1/2 to 1 inch hole to form bagel. Let bagels rise again for 20 minutes.

Put 2-3 bagels at a time into a large pot of boiling water with 1 Tbsp of water added. Let rise to top and turn over and cook for about 1 - 2 minutes (I actually steamed mine instead and it worked great and was MUCH faster because I did not have to wait on each one to cook. Here in Nepal we can get layered momo/dumpling steamers everywhere and I just greased the bottoms of the steamer trays and put a few bagels on each layer and steamed them for 15 minutes instead of boiling them. Keep in mind when you are putting them into the steamer that they will almost double in size once they are steamed so leave room). Remove and sprinkle with salt, onion or more seeds if desired. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes until brown on bottom (I decided to only cook mine for 15 minutes although they probably could have used 20 because I like to toast mine and didn't want them to get overcooked and hard before I toasted them).

I'd love to hear how they turned out!