Bagel Love

Yesterday Pibb and I started our third BBA Challenge project - bagels.  I've been making bagels for a few years now, and they've been good.  But not great.  So when I realized that Peter Reinhart had a bagel recipe in this book, I was ready to jump at the chance to try it. 

Opposite of the other recipes we've tried so far, this one has a large time commitment on the first day and a very small one the second day.  So yesterday we made the sponge, which involves letting a mix of yeast, flour and water sit at room temperature until it's foamy and risen, about 2 hours.  Our house is cold, so I set the bowl next to the stove, where I was also rising Kaiser rolls.  After the sponge was done, we added the rest of the yeast, flour and other ingredients to make a very stiff dough. 

The book said to knead the dough for 10 minutes, but I actually kneaded about 12 as I wasn't satisfied with the dough at 10 minutes.  After the dough was ready we split it into 12 equal portions and let it rest for about half an hour.  Then the fun part - shaping! 

If you've ever played with playdough, you are already very nearly a bagel shaping expert and we've spent many hours rolling, shaping and sculpting with play dough, so the shaping was pretty simple.  We rolled the dough balls into long snakes, wrapped them around our hands and just worked the ends in.  Then it was into the fridge to retard (or a very long, slow rise) overnight. 

All we did today was boil and bake the bagels - less than 15 minutes of hands on work.  The bagels don't need to come out of the fridge until you're ready to boil them, so you could have them boiled, baked and ready to eat in less than 30 minutes, if you want to eat them super hot!  We let them rest about 20 minutes before we ate them today and it was the perfect.

 The book suggests that the formed bagels can sit in the fridge up to 48 hours before being boiled and baked, so these would be great for busy weekends, holidays or brunch with guests. 

Here's how this recipe differed from my typical bagel recipe: The ones I normally make are start to finish, two and a half hours, tops. That means that the dough is a little tougher and the shape is lumpier than a typical bakery bagel. With this recipe, the overnight rest in the fridge gave the dough time to even out and relax, making these bagels very smooth and "professional" looking. My typical recipe also wants the bagels to be flipped over halfway through baking, leaving them flat on both the top and bottom. These are baked at a much higher temperature, for a shorter time and don't get flipped. Again, that leads to a more professional appearance.

These are the bagels I normally make - good, but not amazing.



Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice bagels - AMAZING!

The color in this picture is a little washed out, the bagels were more toasty golden in color.  Pibb ate the first bite and I could tell just from the sound of the crust as he bit into it that these were going to be way better than the others.  Bryant took the next bite and it was immediately clear that the other bagels were not going to be gracing out table again anytime soon, if ever. 

As you can see in the picture, half the bagels were left plain and the other half were given a sprinkle of homemade "everything" blend.  The blend was a little salty, but otherwise, crazy good! 

All in all, I'd call this one a huge success! 

Anadama Bread

Here it is - the very first bread from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice.  Anadama bread is a traditional New England bread made with molasses and corn meal.  It does take two days to make, but the time commitment on the first day is less than five minutes, so it's really a one day bread that takes a tiny bit of forethought and planning. 

Last night, Pibb and I got our soaker going by mixing coarse corn meal and tepid water in a bowl.  We covered it with plastic wrap and left it on the counter overnight.  Seriously simple stuff. 

Today the real work happened!  We started by mixing the soaker with part of the flour, the salt, yeast and additional water.  That mix sat on the counter until it started to bubble a bit, about an hour.  Then we added in the rest of the ingredients and additional flour.  A 10 minute knead and it was ready to rise. 

After about an hour and a half the dough had doubled in size and was ready to be shaped into loaves.  We followed the shaping instructions in the book, which were very simple and easy to follow, although slightly different than my usual method.  The loaves were put on the back of the stove (where it's reasonably warm) and allowed to rise for another hour or so until they were just cresting the top of the loaf pans.

They baked just shy of 45 minutes and then the hardest part - we had to wait a full hour before slicing into them!  But oh, it was worth the wait!  

Pibb is quite proud of his bread and I'm pretty proud of it, too!  He's never made bread before, so it was a whole new experience for him. And while he's seen me make it many times, he's never had the fun of mixing, working the dough, waiting for it to rise and then the satisfaction of that first bite of bread made with his own two hands!

I'm calling this bread a complete success and will very likely work it into my regular rotation.  Bryant has already come out of his office and asked for seconds and all the kids loved their slices!  I think tomorrow I might slice the second loaf, toast it and use it for BLTs for lunch!