Sourdough Bagels

Sourdough Bagels

This recipe is the one we used at the Colorado High Attitude Bakery. I can't count how often expatriate New Yorkers would stop me on the street with tears in their eyes, telling me that mine were the best bagels they'd had since they left "The City," and that they were better than most in "The City" these days. The reasons are simple. I didn't cut corners and used good ingredients. I don't know why so many bakeries cut corners on making bagels these days, it's really NOT that hard!

In any case, this recipe will make 4 bagels of about 4 ounces each. I picked this recipe size because it can be easily made by hand in class. This recipe is a simplified version of the recipe I include in my "Back To Bagels" cookbook, available at Mike's Bread Shoppe.

Ingredients:
300 grams High Protein Bread Flour (use as a high a protein level as possible!)
7 grams salt
10 grams malt powder (available at health food stores and brewing suppy houses)
150 grams water
5 grams Light Olive Oil
30 grams sourdough starter
All the measurements are given in grams because the bagel dough is very dense and using cups would be significantly less accurate. Bagel dough has to be thin enough to handle, but dense enough that it can stand up to the steps we'll talk about below.

I can not overstate the notion that bagel dough is different from almost any other dough you will encounter. The goal is not a light, fluffy well-risen loaf. It is a dense, chewy product. As a result, most of what you have, perhaps painfully, learned about doughs doesn't apply. I'll be mentioning how bagels are different from most doughs again from time to time. Try hard to not let what you have learned about most doughs get in your way and keep you from learning about bagels.

Process:
Mix the ingredients above. In a mixer, I like to mix for 5 minutes, let the dough rest for 5 minutes, and then knead for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and well developed. The time can vary, depending on the efficiency of the mixer in dealing with doughs as thick and dense as bagels.

If you are making the dough by hand, knead, or stretch and fold, until the dough passes the windowpane test. It can not be overstated that the dough must be smooth and well developed. It is not easy to develop a dough as thick as bagel dough. Allow the dough to rise for about 2 hours. The dough is so dense that it probably won't visibly rise. You may procede when the dough will not spring back when gently pressed.

Unlike most doughs, I find that it is easier to judge the process by the results and adjust the process for the next batch based on the results, rather than going by the feel of the dough. We'll talk about how to adjust the process in later pargraphs.

The flour you use is CRITICAL to the sucess of the bagels. We use GM's All-Trumps, a flour only available to the trade at this time. It has about 14.2% protein. When we used another flour in the 11.8% protein range, the bagels did not come out as well. If the flour bag does not specify the percent of protein, divide the grams of protein per serving by the number of grams of flour per serving and multiply by 100. (A quick example. If a flour bag says the serving size is 1/4 cup , or 30 grams, with 4 grams of protein, the percent of protein would be (4/30)*100, or 13.33% protein.)

Because the dough is so thick, there is little reason to try to punch the dough down. Just use it. Cut the dough into 4 pieces that are more or less the same size.

This time, roll two of the pieces into strands about 10 inches long, and roll the other two into balls. Then cover the dough and let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes.


There are two main ways to shape bagels. The easy way is to roll the dough into a ball, poke a hole in the center of the ball and then stretch the ball into the doughnut shape we all know and love. So that the pictures below would be clearer, we formed these bagels with a cinnamon-rasin bagel dough.

The purist disdains the poker's method, believing the ONLY way to make a real bagel is to roll the balls into strands about 10" long, form the strands into bagel shapes, press the ends together with some overlap, and then roll the seam to seal it.

Both methods work. Poking is easier, but it's also easy to stretch the bagel dough too far. The cigar roll can make a bagel with more a more consistent size, but it's also easy to not seal the seam well enough and have the bagel fall apart. Now that you've tried both methods, you can decide which you prefer. A hint - if you don't spread the bagels far enough, they'll be too tall to fit in a toaster.

Once the bagels are formed, put them on a baking sheet that has been covered with bakers parchment, spray them with some oil, and cover them with clingwrap. Leave them at room temperature for about an hour. This is called "floor time" in the trade, time when the dough is waiting for the next step in the process, or is perhaps minimally rising. Then put them in a refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, place a large pot of water on to boil and set your oven to 500F. If you want to seed the bagels, put some poppy or sesame seeds onto a plate as the water is heating. Add a tablespoon or two of malt extract, either liquid or powdered, to the water once it is boiling. Note, this is in addition to the malt extract that was included in the dough, or, there is malt extract in BOTH the dough and the boiling water.

Once the water is at a rolling boil, put the bagels into the boiling water, flat side down. Don't crowd the bagels in the pot as they need room to move around.

The bagels should sink to the bottom of the water. If they float at once, they were allowed to rise too long. After a few seconds, typically less than five, they should float to the top. If they don't, nudge them with a spatula, sometimes they will stick to the bottom of the pan. After a minute, whether they floated or not, flip them over. Give them another minute.

For your next batch: if the bagels never floated, or took more than a minute to float, let them rise a bit longer, give them a bit more floor time or use a warmer refrigerator next time. If they floated too quickly, let them rise a bit less, give them a bit less floor time or use a cooler refrigerator next time. If you are making a larger batch and your bagels never floated, let them rise a bit more at room temperature before you boil the rest of the batch.

If you want to make seeded bagels, dip the rounder side - the top - in the seeds you prepared earlier as soon as the bagels are pulled out of the water.

I give the bagels about a 15 minute bake, with some steam in the oven. Don't be afraid to leave the bagels in the oven a few more minutes - you want the crust to have a nice deep tan/brown color.

Once baked, cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, you can slice them and toast them. I often joke that bagels are the only food we boil, bake and then toast... just to make sure they're really, really dead.