Best Bagel Recipe

I have been making bread now for almost 25 years. For a number of years I ran a small bakery out of my kitchen in Bethel, making everying from challah to dark rye. Having grown up in New Jersey, I longed for one thing that really exists nowhere but in the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and that's a real bagel.

My good friend Tom and I spent countless nights trying out different bagel recipes. Everybody recommends different proofing methods, different flour mixtures, different boiling methods....you name it. It was hard not to be passionate about bagels in a place where the quantity and quality of smoked salmon and whitefish is unrivaled. I am sorry to say, but Tom and I never came up with the magic formula on our own. Like all good bread, successful bagels come with consistency - good quality flour, fresh yeast and clean water are critical. In Bush Alaska, these things were impossible to control for. No complaints though. The endeavors always involved lots of laughs, a lovely meal, and the loosening of our belts by a notch or two.

This recipe is the results of experimentation on lots of fronts and help from a couple of great bread books, Bread Alone, and A Blessing of Bread, two of the best bread books you will ever find. Note: These are not perfect New York bagels. Those really do depend on flour from upstate New York and water from the Hudson river. The rest of us will just have to live with bagel envy, but I promise you that these are worth the effort. Enjoy!

Makes 1 dozen bagels
Poolish (starter or sponge):
1 teaspoon instant yeast
3 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups warm water. (just slightly above body temperature, 100F/38C)

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar
Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water
Cornmeal for dusting the pan
Toppings for the bagels such as seeds, salt, onion, or garlic
Plastic spray bottle, set to it's finest mist, filled with clean cold water. 

To Make the Poolish

1. Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours.

To Make the Dough and Form the Bagels

1. Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional yeast into the sponge. Add 2 1/4 cups of white flour, 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour, the sweetener, and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. Pour the remaining 3/4 cups of flour out onto a kneading surface and work it all into the flour. This should take between 15 and 18 minutes  The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but still smooth and elastic.
2. Split the dough into a dozen small pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside on a lightly floured surface, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes.
3. To form the bagles, (preferred) either push your thumb through the center of each roll and then rotate the dough, working it so that the bagel is as even in width as possible, or roll the balls into snakes about 6 inches long, bring the ends together and pinch to seal the ring.
4. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, and oil the paper very lightly.Place the shaped bagels on the pans, leaving an inch or so of space between them. Cover the pans very loosely with plastic and allow the dough to rise for about 20-30 minutes.
5. Place the pans in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours but overnight is ideal.

Baking the Bagels

1. Preheat the oven to 500. 
2. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and dust them with cornmeal.
3. Bring a large stock pot with at least 6 cups of water to a boil. Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the pot.
4. When the water is boiling, drop a 2 to 3 bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute, then, using a large slotted spoon, gently flip them over and boil them on the other side for another minute. 
5. Remove the bagels, carefully, one at a time place on the sheet pan. If you want to dust them with any toppings, this is the time to do it, while they are still slightly moist. Repeat with all of the bagels.
6. Place the sheet pan into the preheated oven. If you have it, mist the oven very quickly with water until it fills with steam, close the door and and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown. Remove the pan from the oven, place the bagels on a cooling rack and let them cool for at least 15 minutes.
7. Once the bagels are cool, make sure to store them in an air-tight plastic bag. These contain no preservatives and so will get hard very quickly. Enjoy.