My bread today is bagels, to have
with Christy's artichoke sauce. -> Started preheating oven/stone
to Very Hot Indeed
Now, the only thing I know about
bagels is that my mother used to I pulled out handfuls of it (there
make them when I was very young, were four) and stretched them into
boiling them in a titanic cast strands which I wrapped into
iron pot that I think doubled as a bagels. Since the dough was very
washpot in a pinch. I think from a wet and light from being risen,
cookbook titled Food That Really they kind of melted together,
Schmecks. It was one of those though they maintained clear
recipes and practices that had centres, leaving them on a wet
vanished forever by the time I was wooden chopping board.
double-digits. I have also heard
about them from standup comedians. These I scooped one at a time into
a small pot of boiling salted
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that water for about two minutes, until
bagels are just a dough that has they looked boiled firm, and
been boiled, then painted with lye returned them to the chopping
and baked. However my mother had board.
been concerned that lye was
poisonous, and I think omitted it. I transfered them to the stone and
painted them with a bit of sesame
So I rose some standard flour oil I had around, and put them on
dough with my starter overnight, the top shelf of the oven on fan
quite high hydration (a lot of bake. I played this by eye rather
water). than time. Maybe after 10 minutes
I opened the oven to release lots
of steam, to allow their crusts to
brown. I let them get towards dark
golden brown in places and turned
off the oven but left them in
there.
Hang on, I'll try eating one now.
Mmm. Really good, the crust is
somehow both crisp and chewy. I
think I actually added some sugar
to the original dough though the
sweetness is mostly gone, consumed
by the yeast. They're just a touch
sour (well, sourdough).
Next time I will try folding the
dough a few times in one direction
before raising it (er, its
secondary raise in bread terms)
and use that direction as the
bagel direction, since this dough
was a bit anisotropic for the idea
of forming a circle.