Bagels

The closing of our local bagel shop (which I never made it to, but had their bagels at PTO coffee) got my friend excited about trying his own bagels. I shared the bagel recipe from the The Bread Baker's Apprentice and he raved about the bagels the recipe produced. This gave me the incentive to try it myself.

I'd always been leery of bagels, since I knew they had a two-stage baking process (boiling then baking) and it seemed like too much of a hassle. But I honestly found it easier to bake bagels than a standard kneaded loaf of bread. There's really only one rise, and it's a piece of cake to form the bagels using the method in the book (which is, essentially, form a roll and let it rise a few minutes. Poke a hole in the middle of the roll and form the bagel around the hole.) The boil is absolutely not a hassle and the baking is much quicker than a loaf of bread.

I had no malt in the house (except in beer bottles, ha) so I substituted honey, which the recipe allows. I also used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour in place of bread flour to increase the density of the crust just a little. I used all instant yeast, though the author suggests a sourdough method which I may try eventually. See the pictures of the finished product here.