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Fresh Mini Homemade Bagels

Reggie Dwork <reggie@jeff-and-reggie.com>
Fri, 04 Mar 2016 10:40:55 -0800
v116.n006.4
* Exported from MasterCook *

                         Bagels, Fresh Mini Homemade

Recipe By     :Peter Reinhart via Lauren
Serving Size  : 12    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Bread-Bakers Mailing List       Breads/Muffins/Rolls
                  Low Fat                         Posted
                  Snacks

    Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
                          Sponge:
    1           teaspoon  instant yeast
    4               cups  unbleached bread flour -- see note 2
    2 1/2           cups  water -- room temperature
                          Dough:
       1/2      teaspoon  instant yeast
    3 3/4           cups  unbleached bread flour -- see note 2
    2 3/4      teaspoons  salt
    2          teaspoons  malt powder -- or 1 T dark or light malt 
syrup, honey, or brown sugar (see note 1)
                          To Finish:
    1         tablespoon  baking soda


There are a lot of notes for this one, so you might want to skim 
ahead to the end first. Otherwise, these are utterly glorious as-is, 
chewy with a crispy and tough exterior and a soft, flavorful 
interior. I have it on good authority that these are as good as, if 
not better, than the Old School variety.

Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, kosher salt, rehydrated dried minced 
garlic or onions (Deb note: this was what I chose, and found the 
taste very authentic), or chopped onions that have been tossed in oil 
(optional)

First, make the sponge for the bagels. Stir yeast into the flour. 
Stir in the water until it forms a sticky thick batter. Cover the 
bowl with plastic wrap and leave it in a warm spot in your kitchen 
for about 2 hours or until the mixture is foamy, bubbly and almost 
double in size.

To make the dough, stir in the rest of the yeast to the sponge using 
a stand mixer {use the dough hook}. Stir in 3 cups of flour, salt and 
malt powder or syrup. After a minute or two, the dough will come 
together into a ball. Continue to sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup 
flour into the dough with the machine on low. {At this point, I had 
to remove the dough and knead the rest of the flour in by hand.

If you keep your dough in the mixer, continue kneading for 6 minutes. 
If you transfer the dough to the counter to knead by hand, knead for 
10 minutes. At this point, all the flour should be incorporated into 
the dough and the dough should be soft, smooth and firm. If the dough 
is too dry {rips} add in a little water. If the dough is tacky 
{sticky} then add in a little more water.

Divide dough into 4 1/2 ounce pieces for normal 'standard size' 
bagels and 2 1/4 oz pieces for mini bagels. Roll dough into smooth 
balls and place on lightly greased parchment paper. Cover rolls with 
plastic wrap or a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes or so.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly spray with non 
stick cooking spray. Take each roll in your hand and carefully pinch 
a hole into the center forming a bagel. Try to keep the bagel as even 
as possible doing your best to avoid thick and thin spots. {You can 
also roll the dough into a rope and form bagels that way-I just 
thought it was easier to poke the hole in the center.

Place each bagel 1-2" apart on the prepared pans. Mist the bagels 
with non-stick cooking spray and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let 
the pans sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, check to see if you're ready to finish the bagels. 
Drop a bagel into room temperature water. If it floats within 10 
seconds, then they are ready to be boiled and baked or retarded in 
the fridge. If the bagel doesn't float, pat it dry lightly and return 
in to the pan to continue to proof. Check back every 10 to 20 minutes 
or so until a tester floats. Once a tester floats, place bagels into 
the fridge until you are ready to cook them OR get ready to boil and bake!

When you are ready to bake the bagels, preheat the oven to 500F with 
the two racks set in the middle of the oven. Bring a large pot of 
water to a boil, and add the baking soda and optionally, a few 
tablespoons of barley syrup.

Remove the bagels from the refrigerator and gently drop them into the 
water, boiling only as many as comfortably fit. After 1 minutes flip 
them over and boil for another minute. If you like very chewy bagels, 
you can extend the boiling to 2 minutes per side. While the bagels 
are boiling, sprinkle the same parchment-lined sheet pans with 
cornmeal or semolina flour. {I didn't have any semolina so I just 
kept the same parchment covered baking sheets and sprayed a little 
more non stick cooking spray on them and it worked just fine!} If you 
want to top the bagels with sesame or poppy seeds, do so as soon as 
they come out of the water so they stick!

When all the bagels have been boiled, place the pans on the 2 middle 
shelves in the oven. Bake for approximately 5 minutes, then rotate 
the pans, switching shelves and giving the pans a 180F rotation. If 
you are baking only 1 pan, keep it on the center shelf but still 
rotate 180F. After the rotation, lower the oven setting to 450F and 
continue baking for about 5 minutes, or until the bagels turn light 
golden brown. You may bake them darker if you prefer. I ended up 
baking mine 15 minutes to get the golden color I like, turning my 
pans 3 times, once every 5 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and cool the bagels 5-10 minutes before 
removing to a cooling rack.

12 extremely large, 16 regularly large or 24 miniature bagels

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels: For cinnamon raisin bagels, increase the 
yeast in the final dough to 1 teaspoon, and add 1 tablespoon of 
ground cinnamon and 5 tablespoons of granulated sugar to the final 
dough. Rinse 2 cups of loosely packed raisins with warm water to wash 
off surface sugar, acid, and natural wild yeast. Add the raisins 
during the final 2 minutes of mixing. Proceed as directed, but do not 
top the bagels with any garnishes. When they come out of the oven and 
are still hot, you can brush the tops with melted butter and dip them 
in cinnamon sugar to create a cinnamon-sugar crust, if desired.

Note 1:
In his introduction to bagels, Reinhart mentions two ingredients that 
are not exactly ordinary, but completely essential to the bagel 
texture and flavor. The first is barley malt powder or syrup, more 
for that typical bagel shop flavor than anything else, and something 
that was readily available at Whole Foods and a bunch of other 
stores. Sadly, I cannot tell you if this ingredient is as essential 
as he said because I woke up with a startle at 7 a.m. the next 
morning, "Oh my god I forgot to add the barley syrup!" Don't you hate 
it when that happens? Later, I read a recipe that suggested you add 
the barley syrup to the boiling water bath, and I did so in my later 
batches, figuring it wouldn't hurt to get the flavor in somewhere. I 
ended up feeling that these bagels had a slightly darker, and more 
stereotypically-bagel color than the earlier batches, so I am adding 
this as an optional step.

Note 2:
The second is high gluten flour, a step above the extra gluten in 
bread flour. (Though he says regular bread flour will work in a jam, 
I'm used to getting top-notch bagels, and was convinced I'd be able 
to tell the difference.) This can be ordered online or available in a 
specialty store (though I couldn't come up with one in NYC that had 
it). Or, you can beg your local bagel shop for some of theirs, and 
given that the other two options would take time and energy, I turned 
to our beloved Murray's on 8th Avenue. They came through, and then 
some, and I am now the proud own of some ten pounds of super-high 
gluten flour, and a sinking feeling that I'll be making bagels again 
or some very tough cookies (bah!) this winter. The crazy, it keeps coming.

I had difficulties getting my seeds and onion bits to stick to the 
top of the bagels. Though the recipe does not call for an egg wash, I 
would definitely use one next time to get them to stick, after the 
boiling and before the baking.

Source:
    "based on Peter Reinhart's Bagels (see recipe)"
S(Internet Address):
    "http://www.laurenslatest.com/fresh-mini-homemade-bagels/";
                                      - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 325 Calories; 1g Fat (4.2% 
calories from fat); 11g Protein; 65g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary 
Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 807mg Sodium.  Exchanges: 4 1/2 
Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.