Delicious and fresh homemade bagels are totally worth the trouble. It takes roughly 2,5 hours to make but you’ll never want it any other way after this.

Homemade bagels
Bagels with rosemary

Homemade bagels

It hasn’t been that long that I learned that baking bread is really not as scary as I once thought it was. I can’t really say that I am the best at baking fresh bread but these homemade bagels definitely worked out well. Maybe I produced a little bit oversized bagels, but better too big than too small!

After having baked bread with a friend I was bold enough to make these homemade bagels. I figured that the worst thing that could happen was that the bagels were horrible. And let me tell you; they are not.

Baking bagels
Rise and shine!

Focaccia

Earlier this week I already made a focaccia with walnuts and I loved the feeling of my hands in the dough. However these bagels were something different all together. While I think we all agree that bagels and New York go really well together, apparently bagels are originally a Jewish invention from the 17th century.

Cooking the bagels
Cooking the bagels

Cooking bagels

I happened to have bought a new cookbook by Leila Lindholm. She is great at baking and the book is pretty full of delicious recipes including quite a few bread baking recipes. When going through the book I stumbled upon this recipe for homemade bagels and I was intrigued. I had heard before that you were meant to cook the bagels before baking them in the oven. That sounded so weird and strange that I just had to try it. Plus I already loved bagels so making my own was the next thing to try.

Bagels with fruit

Good flour

One of the first things that anyone who bakes will tell you is that the quality of the flour you use is really important. Good ingredients are the key to good baking. I bought some good flours at the local mill and they arrived just in time for my bagel making experiment.

Making the bagels was pretty straight forward. The dough itself wasn’t too sticky and easy to handle. The only thing I didn’t take into account was the fact that the dough obviously needed to rise so my normal sized bagels, turned out really big. Especially once I placed them in the boiling water.

I decided to make two varieties. Well three really; with rosemary, with sesame seeds and with blue berries.

Freshly baked bagels

Smaller berries

As it happened my blue berries where giant. That didn’t make it really easy to incorporate them into the bagel though and working them in was not easy either. I ate them with cream cheese, bananas and cinnamon and while delicious I might add a little bit of sugar into the dough next time. That is optional of course but it will enhance the flavor.

Adding different flavors to the dough is really simple. Just make sure you divide the dough and work the ingredients into your homemade bagels prior to cooking.

Making your own bagels
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5 from 1 vote

Homemade bagels

It's a bit of work but these homemade bagels are so good!
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes
Servings: 12 bagels

Ingredients

  • 25 gr fresh yeast or 7 gr instant yeast
  • 500 ml lukewarm water
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp liquid honey
  • 750-850 gr all purpose flour good quality flour
  • eggwhite to put on top of the bagels

Instructions

  • Crumble the yeast (if using fresh) and dissolve this into the water. Add the salt and the honey.
  • Add the flour in small amounts at the time and knead for about 5 minutes in a foodprocessor until smooth and firm.
  • Cover the bowl with a clean teatowel and leave to rise for about 50 minutes until the volume has doubled.
  • Put the dough onto a flour covered surface and knead a little. Divide into 12 portions
  • Make each portion into a circle and make a hole in the middle with your fingers. Twist the bagel around your finger and turn (swinging your bagel around the hole in the middle) to smooth out the form.
  • Put the bagels on a baking tray covered with baking paper, cover with a clean teatowel and leave to rise for another 45 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 180 C. Bring a large pot of water to the boil.
  • Cook the bagels, a few at the time, for about 1-2 minutes on each side.
  • Put the bagels on a teatowel to drain and then transfer them back onto the baking tray with baking paper.
  • Brush with the eggwhite and bake the bagels in the middle of the preheated oven for about 25 minutes

Notes

To make the blueberry bagels you need about 100 gr of blueberries. Add the blueberries to the dough as soon as you mixed it all before starting the first rise.
Follow the process the same way.
Course: Breakfast, lunch
Cuisine: American
Keyword: almond flour

Nutrition Information

Calories: 240kcal, Carbohydrates: 51g, Protein: 7g, Fat: 1g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 1g, Sodium: 583mg, Potassium: 81mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 3g, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 10mg, Iron: 3mg

Disclaimer

The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.

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