Remember the old joke, "Why are seagulls called seagulls? Because if they flew over the bay they'd be called bagels." Well, this was my introduction into the world of baking and, if I say so myself, ended up making some pretty good bagels on my first attempt. This is actually the fault of my mother-in-law. She's been a great supporter of my cooking habit the past year or so and she's pushed me over the edge into the world of baking now. You see, I've not enjoyed the baking sections of Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Most of my baking related attempts, and dishes involving dough, have not turned out all that well and I've found them very stressful.
The problem is that baking is too much like science. You have to be precise and use pretty exact measurements. The biggest problem with baking is that its kind of a mystery until it is done baking. You mix everything up, you follow the directions, and then you have to put it in an oven forever and there's nothing you can do about it until you take it back out. At least with cooking you can sample and doctor things up while you're preparing it.
In any case, I now have Julia Child's baking book. Did you know she had a baking book? Neither did I! Tecnically it isn't "her" baking book -- it's written by someone else with Julia's input and approval but it is still a great book. I think of it as "Mastering the Art of French baking" but it is actually called "Baking with Julia" and is based on a PBS series she had hosted. I really like the book because it is much more than just a recipe book. It not only
provides recipes and instructions but it teaches why certain ingredients are used, what different baking tools are used for, etc. For example, I knew there's a "bread flour," "all purpose flour," and "cake flour" but I had no idea what the difference was. It has to do with the amount of gluten in the flours. Bread flour has the most gluten and helps give the bread a nice crispy and hard crust. Cake flour has the least amount of gluten and helps keep baked goods like cake nice and fluffy and soft. All purpose flour is actually a mixture of bread flour and cake flour and can vary based upon the brand used. Wow!
I've been looking at, and reading through, the baking book since receiving it a couple weeks ago but still hadn't gotten up my nerve to try a and bake anything -- largely because of the time involved. I mean, really, who has time to bake? First you have to buy the ingredients, then you have to mix them up, then you need to knead the dough, then it has to rise, then you have to bake it! My first glances were finding recipes that require four or five hours to rise plus and then there's baking time on top of that!
Luckily I kept looking at recipes and came across these bagels. Yes, bagels! I though bagels were anything but French but there they were. The dough had two different rising times but I was sold when I learned that I could let it rise overnight. Thus began my first baking quest. I had visions running through my head of bagels I've had at bagel shops - "Everything" bagels, jalapeno cheese bagels, cheese bagels, and so on. So it wasn't without misadventure but it worked out.
I s'pose I should list the ingredients here (for 10 bagels) in case you're inspired to try yourself. I'll just list the "plain bagel" ingredients -- I added the other topping goodies based on what I had on hand but you can be as creative as you want. Here's the list:
- 2 tbs unsalted butter
- 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 2 1/4 cups of tepid water (80-90 degrees F)
- 2 tbs (approximately) sugar
- 3 tbs solid vegetable shortening
- 1 tbs salt
- 1-2 tsp ground black pepper
- 6 cups (approximately) bread flour
My observers thought it was weird for me to put black pepper into the mix but I did let them know that I've used black pepper in the mix every time I've made bagels! The pepper actually gave the bagels a really nice hint of pepper that you had to think about to notice. I'll be using it in the future again.
Gathering the ingredients was the easy part because as the project began with a lot of new vocabulary I had to learn. Things like "proofing yeast." First of all, I'm not sure what a yeast is. I took engineering classes, not biology. I can follow instructions and it says I'm supposed to use "active dry yeast." Easy enough -- I opened the yeast container and scooped out the 2 1/4 tsp of active yeast. Let me tell you, those guys weren't what I'd consider active. They just laid there in the bowl. Nobody moved. Nobody in the bowl made a noise. They just laid there. Luckily my son-in-law Peter was nearby and he likes to bake. "You need to feed them" he tells me. Oh...I can't see a mouth on any of them and I certainly didn't have any spoons that were small enough anyway. Peter explained that the sugar and water was on the list to feed them with. Oh. Right. I decided I'd play along.
I needed to use 1/4 cup of the tepid water. Right. I have a jug of distilled water, I have some bottled water in my car, and I have a faucet that provides water. The store doesn't have tepid water so I had to use a suitable substitute of 80-90 degree water. I put the 1/4 cup of water into a small bowl together with the "active" yeast (that was still just laying there) and gave them 2 tablespoons of sugar as a snack. They didn't exactly jump for joy but the little yeasts seemed to dissolve and started turning creamy and a little bubbly. "That," Peter said, "showed me that the yeast was alive and ready to do their thing." Right. I'm not sure the difference between an active yeast and an inactive yeast, they all seem pretty lazy to me, but apparently they like to blow bubbles if they're alive. The trick, I'm told, is to be patient and give the yeast at least 5-10 minutes to wake up (apparently they are slow risers).
Now that my yeast mixture was creamy and bubbly it was time to make some dough! Into the mixing bowl went the rest of the water, the shortening, the yeast mixture, the rest of the sugar, the salt and the black pepper. Everything got mixed together as best as it would, but the shortening didn't really mix in at this point. Actually, at this point the mixture looked sort
of like some sort of toxic sludge.
Then it was time for the really fun part - power tools! Remember my introduction where I mentioned that the time required for baking has been part of the reason I haven't been too inclined to bake? At this point I had the choice of mixing and kneading the dough by hand, or using a mixer with a dough hook. Guess which I chose! With the mixer on a low speed I started adding the flour about 1/2 cup at a time. This sounds easy enough but...well, let me explain. The electric mixer my mom used sat still while it mixed and the bowl rotated around the beaters. We have a Kitchenaid mixer...this is where I learned that the bowl stays stationary and the blade rotates its position as well as rotating the blade (or dough hook in this case). Let's just say my timing wasn't always perfect and I kinda spilled a little flour on the counter thanks to my measuring cup being bonked by the mixer.
This process was actually interesting to watch. The ingredients were powder and liquid, then they turned into a really goopy, and sticky mixture, and then as the dough hook continued kneading the dough the gluten began to release and come together to pull everyone together. Apparently that's what gluten and kneading are all about -- "toughening" up the dough. I'll learn more about gluten and share what I learn later -- maybe I'll be a "gluten" for punishment? The whole process took about 10 minutes with the mixer on low while the ingredients were added and then 2-3 minutes to mix everything. Once it was thoroughly mixed the dough was kneaded by the machine for about 6 minutes as the dough formed into a smooth and elastic ball. A little flour was added at a time until it seemed like the right consistency (yeah, I guessed).
While the machine was kneading the dough, I coated a large metal mixing bowl with butter. The instructions were easy -- once the dough was kneaded I just needed to transfer it into the buttered mixing bowl. Yeah. Right. Julia warned me that the dough "may still be slightly sticky and it may not clean the sides and bottom of the bowl completely -- that's OK" I'm glad she warned me. It was, indeed, sticky but I did get it into the bowl eventually.
This was the point where I got to clean up while the little yeast buddies did their thing -- the bowl of dough was covered with some buttered plastic wrap and a towel and left out at room temperature. It was kind of creepy -- that little ball of dough doubled in size while I let it rise for an hour. It really worked. Amazing! Then I had to "deflate" the dough. Yeah, right I used my hand (a fist actually) and gently pressed on the dough (after removing the plastic wrap) and, sure enough, it deflated! I pressed it down a couple of times and it reduced to just a little better than where it was when we started Yep, I have no idea why I had to do this step but I did it.
Then the dough got chilled. The instructions said it needed to stay in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight. I did the overnight option so we could have fresh bagels for breakfast.
In the morning it was time to actually make the bagels. The dough had risen again and was deflated once more. Before taking the dough from the fridge I turned the oven on to 500 degrees (yep, that hot!) to preheat and also my largest pot was put on the stove filled with water and started to heat up to a boil. Then the dough was split in half, half was put on a floured marble counter and the other half left in the fridge to wait patiently.
The half on the counter was divided into five equal sections and then turned into bagels. This part was actually kind of fun because it worked! One at a time, the bottom sides of each blob of dough was pulled up to the top and pinched together at the top. This was done all the way around the ball of dough to "form the gluten cloak" that give bagels their characteristic outer skin.
Next the tightly packed dough ball with the seam pinched together on the top was turned over onto the counter with the seam down. I took my finger and poked it into the middle of the dough ball and wiggled it around enough to make a hole so my finger would act like the axle for a wheel. Then I began rotating it around my finger and squeeze it to enlarge the hole and squeeze the dough to form its bagel shape. The hole got a bit bigger and I continued to rotate it like a tire through my thumb and finger and made a dough ring in the shape of a bagel.
As I finished shaping each of the rings, I laid them out on a cookie sheet covered with paper towels that were coated with flour. It worked, they didn't stick!
Next came to the water bath. This step was pretty scary to me. My brain was telling me that if I took these soft rings of dough and plopped them into boiling water they'd just dissolve -- but they didn't! By now the water had heated to a boil so I added 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the water. The bagels were then put into the water one at a time. At first the bagel sank to the bottom but within 30 seconds it floated back to the top of the water. The first batch of five bagels were put in one at a time and they were all allowed to boil for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes after they raised back up to the surface. Then I gently flipped them over for another 1 1/2 to 2 minutes before they were removed.
When I took them out I laid them (smoothest side up) on a cookie sheet that had been dusted/sprinkled with cornmeal. For the bagels that would have "everything" added on top, I also sprinkled that on the cookie sheet so the bottom of the bagel had the spices too. I made a couple of different types of bagels -- some had a slice of cheese added on top, others a slice of cheese and sliced fresh jalapenos, some had an "everything" spice mixture, and others were sprinkled with a blend of crushed red pepper/oregano/garlic. The tops of the bagels were brushed with an egg white/water wash to help the toppings stick to the bagels.
Then it was finally time to bake them! Baking was an adventure too. First of all, I've never used an oven at 500 degrees before -- that seemed pretty close to the temperature where steel starts to turn into a liquid. Before opening the oven door I had to get a 1/4 cup of cold water ready with 4 ice cubes in it. The sheet with the bagels went into the oven and then the cold water and ice were tossed into the bottom of the hot oven and the door quickly closed. That apparently made it a nice humid sauna for baking the bagels. The oven was then turned down to 450 degrees and the bagels baked for 25 minutes. At the end of 25 minutes the oven was turned off and the bagels left inside for another 5 minutes and then the oven door was opened and they stayed in for another 5 minutes.
While the first batch of 5 bagels was baking, it was time to repeat the above steps for the remaining dough that was resting in the fridge. When the first batch of bagels came out of the oven and onto a cooling rack, the oven was reset to 500 degrees and as soon as it was hot again the second batch went in to bake.
That was it, simple right? Actually, writing about it made it sound harder than it was. There were a lot of steps but they went fast and will be even faster the next time since I know a bit better how to do each step.
Eating these things was the best part. We devoured these hot, fresh bagels within a
bout 20 minutes of them coming out of the oven.
Try it, you'll like it!
Bon Apetit!
Commenti