(everything) bagels

When I went grocery shopping earlier this week, I was eyeing the cream cheese. I don't buy it usually, but bagels and cream cheese sounded so good. I can't remember the last time I had a bagel. (No, I'm not pregnant with food cravings. These are normal-not-pregnant food cravings.) So, I bought it, but then had a package of the cream cheese in the refrigerator and no bagels. I wasn't going to buy bagels- no, no, no! I needed to get the motivation to get up early and make some fresh bagels for breakfast. My motivation- cream cheese.
I got up bright and early this morning and got to work. I used the bagel recipe from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. (She takes recipes, prices the cost of buying vs. making and tells you if it's worth it to make. She's also very funny!)
If you aren't familiar with the process of bagel making, let me enlighten you. The dough is fairly simple and surprisingly doesn't have any fats in it. Once the dough has doubled in size, you divide into pieces, and shape. The bagels are boiled and then baked, unless you have a steam oven then you can just bake. One ingredient that all bagel recipes call for is barley malt syrup. (You add that to the boiling water.) I've never had it in my pantry, so I put a couple tablespoons of brown sugar in the water.

Bagels

3 1/2 cups flour
4 1/2 teaspoons yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 cups warm water

2 tablespoons barley malt syrup
Oil
Cornmeal

Get two sheet trays. Grease one tray and sprinkle the other with cornmeal; set aside.
Mix all the dry ingredients and then pour in water. I mixed this all in my stand mixer and once everything came together, I switched to the dough hook and mixed it for five more minutes.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Let the dough rise for an hour or until doubled in bulk, in a greased bowl.
Divide dough into ten pieces. Make a ball with each piece and use your thumb to make a hole. (Make the hole bigger than you think because the holes in my bagels disappeared when they baked.) Place shaped bagels on greased sheet.

 

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add syrup or sugar and drop in three bagels at a time. Cook for 1 minute on each side. Put bagels back onto greased sheet tray and continuing boiling bagels until all are done.
If you want to add any toppings to the bagels, do so now (Ex. sesame or poppy seeds) To make everything bagels, I sprinkled sesame and poppy seeds with onion and garlic powder. If you have dehydrated onion and garlic that would be better.

 

 

 
 
Transfer bagels to cornmeal sheet tray and bake for 25 minutes.
Split, smear on the cream cheese and enjoy!

Yes, it does take some time, but they are absolutely worth it. <3

Where did the hole go?