This Bitch Loves Bagels
Many years ago I posted a bagel recipe on my old Tumblr. Much to my amusement, someone “reblogged” it with the comment, “THIS BITCH LOVES BAGELS!” This quickly became a kind of catchphrase between Eric and I. To this day, whenever I speak reverently about bagels one of us will inevitably say, “This bitch loves bagels!” Since I talk of my love for bagels so often, the phrase has been repeated again and again.
The fact is, this bitch truly does love bagels.
Bagels are one of my desert island foods. I almost always feel like eating one. While I’ve never turned my nose up at a store bought bagel, there is nothing like a fresh, homemade bagel with a crispy crust and chewy, tender crumb. Using naturally leavened dough elevates a bagel even further.
I’ve tried a lot of recipes, some with commercial yeast and some with my sourdough starter. I’ve experimented with all kinds of tricks, timelines and shaping methods. I’m sure I’ll continue to tinker down the road, but I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a go-to sourdough bagel recipe, so it’s time to share!
Like I mentioned in the last post, I recently tried Emilie Raffa’s bagel recipe from her book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. First, I baked a delicious batch of spiced currant bagels. (This bitch is in a cinnamon raisin phase.)
I was delighted with the result. Since then, I’ve tried her recipe a couple more times and adapted it a bit to my tastes. Most notably, I’ve pulled back on the starter in the mix so they’re a little less sour and I’ve incorporated some whole grain flour into the mix.
This recipe yields an excellent batch of bagels, but what I love most is its simplicity. As long as your starter is active (and mine usually is on a Friday or Saturday night), it’s a relatively fast and easy timeline: mix the dough in the evening, give it a fold before bed, then shape, boil, and bake in the morning. Also, unlike some recipes, these bagels don’t call for random ingredients you may may not have on hand (like milk powder or malt syrup).
I had the day off on Wednesday, so I sent Eric to work with a basket of bagels. The bagels received rave reviews: one co-worker said they were the best bagel she’s ever had (!), and another brought one home and still ate it even after accidentally leaving it out for her kitten to nibble on.
Try them out!
Sourdough Bagels
Adapted from Emilie Raffa’s “Sunday Morning Bagel” recipe in Artisan Sourdough Made Simple
90g bubbly, active starter (100% hydration)*
280g warm water
50g whole wheat flour**
480g bread flour**
25g (2T) sugar
9g (1 ½ t) fine sea salt
A dollop of honey, for the boiling water
1. The night before you want to bake bagels, combine the starter and water in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix it up a bit with your hands or a spatula. Next, add the sugar, salt and flour and mix until you’ve got a rough mass of dough. Knead at low speed with the dough hook for about 5 minutes until smooth.
2. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rest for about an hour.
3. Stretch and fold the dough over itself a couple of times to form a smooth ball. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic (or the lid of your bowl, if you’ve got one. I love these bowls for bulk fermentation). Let ferment at room temperature overnight. Dream sweet dreams of fresh bagels.
bagel dough after an overnight bulk
4. In the morning, turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. (Unlike a country loaf, this is a low hydration dough that is easy to work with. You don’t need flour for shaping. In fact, adding more flour at this point might make it difficult to get the surface tension you need to shape.)
5. Divide the dough into eight even pieces and shape into balls. This feels a lot like shaping pizza dough balls.
pre-shaped bagels
6. Cover the balls with a towel and let them rest for about 10 minutes while you make some coffee and line a half sheet pan with parchment paper.
7. Working with one ball at a time, poke a hole directly in the middle with your index finger. Once it’s through, stretch the hole out a bit and place the shaped bagel on the parchment-lined pan. (The dough will bounce back a bit and the hole will shrink when resting. That’s OK.)
shaped bagels, resting
8. Cover the dough and let rest again for about 15 minutes while you get ready to boil and bake.
9. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and set a rack in the middle of the oven.
10. In a large saucepan, bring water and the honey to a boil
11. Drop a few bagels into the boiling water. Let the bagels rise to the surface and water return to a boil, about 10 seconds. Boil the bagels for about a minute, turning once. Remove them one at a time with a slotted spoon or spatula and plop them back onto the parchment-lined pan.
bagels boiling
12. When they’re all boiled, bake them until golden brown, for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once in the middle of baking time.
13. Let them coolm a bit and dive in.
All done!
These are best within about an hour of baking. But, like lots of breads, they keep fresh in the freezer! I freeze leftovers after they’ve cooled completely on day one, and revive them in the toaster or oven directly from the freezer.
*When at room temperature, I refresh my starter twice a day. I mix this dough in the evening after refreshing my starter in the morning. Lately I’ve been feeding my starter almost all whole wheat flour, so that upped the wheat percentage in this mix. This is just to share- I’m sure it will work great no matter your routine!
**I used fresh milled hard red spring wheat from Palouse Heritage Grains and King Arthur Bread Flour.
For further bagel reading:
-A charming bagel manifesto from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. All of his points resonate.
-A fascinating slice of New York bagel & labor history from Atlas Obscura about the midcentury bagel famines.
