“The brilliant thing about this ‘everything bagel’ recipe is that the dough is also the basis of thin, crisp tarte flambée (or pizza for that matter), pizzette, empanadas and souvlaki. Who would have thought that bagels could give you all that?
This is a dough that keeps remarkably well, too. Make it when your starter is ready or you have some time up your sleeve and it will be waiting for you, good as new, in a few days’ time for bagels. Or use it up to five days later for pizza or souvlaki. My advice is to always have some in your fridge. (It also makes a nice homemade gift!).
Despite the actual shaping of the bagels needing a bit of skill, the mixing is super easy and the resting period is short. Unlike all our other doughs, it’s got a low hydration and contains commercial yeast.
You’ll need to begin this recipe 17–18 hours before you want to eat,” write Mike Russell and Emma Breheny.
Makes 10 bagels
WHAT YOU NEED
| Baking ingredients and percentages | ||
| Ripe starter (page 36) | 150 g (5 ½ oz) | 20% |
| Strong (baker’s) flour | 750 g (1 lb 10 oz) | 100% |
| Filtered water, at 5 – 10°C (40-50°F) | 390 g (13 ¼ oz) | 52% |
| Old dough (see notes) | 150 g (5 ½ oz) | 20% |
| Barley (or rice) malt syrup | 7 g (1/8 oz) | 1% |
| Raw sugar | 52 g (1 ¾ oz) | 7% |
| Fine pink salt | 18.5 g (¾ oz) | 2.5% |
| Dried yeast (see note) | 3 g (1/16 oz) | 0.4% |
Extra ingredients
Multi-seed mix, sesame seeds or poppyseeds, for sprinkling
WHAT TO DO
For mixing
You have two choices when mixing the bagel dough: mix it in your stainless steel bowl, or use a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment; normally stand mixers don’t suit our bread, but this dough is a lower hydration, so you can get away with it here.
Prep your starter, then measure out all your ingredients. Add the wet ingredients – that is the starter, water, old dough and malt syrup – to the bowl, then add the dry ingredients – the flour, sugar, salt and yeast – and begin to mix.
If mixing by hand, then you need to work vigorously and make sure that the ingredients are fully combined and developed well. In the bowl, start mixing from the outside and work your way in as you rotate the bowl. Continue mixing until it’s shaggy. The hydration of this dough will mean that everything will combine quickly, but it can’t be developed by folding – you have to knead.
Tip the dough onto an unfloured bench (this dough is less sticky than others) and knead for 10 minutes. Use your pastry scraper to bring the dough back towards you and keep your other hand as your ‘dough hand’. If you’re using a stand mixer, fit it with the dough hook attachment and begin mixing on a moderate speed before quickly shifting it up to high. Mix for approximately 10 minutes.
Once the dough is mixed, it should feel somewhere between pasta dough and bread: smooth to the touch with no dry remnants of ingredients. Rest it for 10 minutes, covered with a pizza tray or a clean tea towel, in an ambient spot.
For shaping
Prepare a clean bench for shaping the bagels, allowing plenty of room for rolling and shaping. If you’re not ready to bake yet, place the dough in an oiled, sealed container in your refrigerator. It’ll keep for up to 5 days at this point (or 3 months frozen) and can be used for any of the recipes in this chapter. If it’s frozen, make sure to thaw it first.
When you’re ready to bake, tip the rested dough onto your cleaned, unfloured bench and shape it into a flat rectangle with your hands. Make the edges as straight and flat as you can. This is your bagel slab. It should be about 5cm (2 inches) high and as even in height as possible.
Now that you have your slab on the bench, grab your dough scraper and start scoring rows (that is, running from left to right) into the dough, 3cm (1 ¼ inches) apart. You want between 10 and 11 rows. This is where you will cut your strips of dough that end up being the bagels.
Cut the first strip with your dough scraper then pull it away from your slab. Roll this strip on the bench so it’s smooth and even and measures approximately 25cm (10 inches) long. It should look like a giant sausage or ribbon of dough.
Loop the dough strip around your hand and into your palm, arranging it so the ends of the strip meet in your palm near where your thumb and index finger join. Leaving about 3cm (1¼ inches) overlapping, tear the excess dough away and place it on the bench (pieces of scrap dough can be joined together and refrigerated to be used for other recipes in this chapter, or anything that calls for old dough).
You now have the bagel strip in your hand and you just need to seal the ends. With the bagel’s join in your palm being held by your thumb and index finger, drop your hand to the bench and apply pressure against the bench to seal, rolling the dough backwards and forwards until it’s joined.
Repeat the process with the remaining strips from your bagel slab.
Once all the bagels are shaped, we recommend sprinkling them with our multi-seed mix. To do this, prepare a large bowl of cold water at 10°C (50°F) or below, a tea towel, and a tray filled with the seed mix. Dunk each bagel into the water and then shake off the excess over the cloth. Place the bagel into the seed mix, toss it and make sure that the seeds completely cover the bagel all over.
Once all the bagels are shaped (and covered with seeds, if you like), lay them in a Nordic Ware proofing tray (with a lid) lined with baking paper. You should be able to fit four or five bagels before moving to a second tray. Cover with the lid of the proofing tray and place at the bottom of the fridge (where your crisper lives) to proof for at least 8 hours and up to 12 hours. Alternatively, you can bake the same day as shaping by covering the tray and proofing the bagels at room temperature for 3–4 hours.
For baking
Take the bagels from the fridge approximately 3 hours ahead of bake time and place them in a warm area of your house. If you’ve rested them at room temperature, skip this step.
An hour before baking, heat the oven to 250°C (480°F), or as high as it will go. Before you turn it on, make sure your oven is set up with two racks or shelves. You will need the top shelf for your bagels and the one underneath for a tray of water, which will create steam.
When the oven has come to temperature and is ready to bake, uncover one of your bagel trays. Fill a second tray with higher edges with 300ml (10½ fl oz) water.
Place the bagel tray on the top shelf and the water tray on the bottom, and bake for 30 minutes until the bagels are doubled in size and have a deep golden brown crust.
Once the bagels are ready, remove them from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing, or keep them in a cloth or paper bag. Bagels toast well, freeze well and are great turned into chips too.
Repeat the baking process for the second tray of bagels.
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