My guy loves onion bagels. I do not love the prices we have to pay lately for Lender's, his favorite brand, so I decided to find out how hard it is to make them. Although the recipe I first tried was a bit fussy, and the bagels came out too big for our little toaster, I tried tweaking it a few times.
I've finally got it where we like it. My spin uses about half the ingredients, comes out smaller, crustier and has garlic as well as onion flakes in it. Cost is about a third of what we pay for six store-bought bagels, and my recipe makes 8.
Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon white sugar
1-1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
2-1/2 cups plus 3-6 tablespoons unbleached flour
2 tablespoons dried onion flakes + a tablespoon of warm water, mixed together to rehydrate the onions
5 cloves of crushed garlic lightly sauteed in a tablespoon of butter or margarine (you can also cook them in the microwave for 15 secs at a time, just watch them so they don't burn)
Water Bath:
4 quart pan of water 2 tablespoons white sugar
Mix everything but the onion flakes and crushed garlic together. Knead by hand or mix in heavy duty mixer with dough hook for 8 minutes. Add in onion and garlic, mix for another 4 minutes. Put dough in bowl coated with cooking oil spray, spray top of dough with cooking oil spray, cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 1 hour until double in size.
Preheat your oven to 400F. Divide risen dough into eight equal parts. Roll each part into a ball, punch a hole in the center with your thumbs and shape into bagel form (as you can see from the pic I need more practice at this!) Set aside and let the bagels rest while you heat the water bath to boiling. Place the bagels two or three at a time in the bath for thirty seconds, turn over, let boil for another thirty seconds, then place on parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake water-bathed bagels at 400F for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on rack after removing from oven.
Comments