Bagel Recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 ½ cups bread flour or high gluten flour (you may need up to 1/2 cup for kneading)

4 ½ teaspoons brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 ¼ cups warm water (you may need ± ¼ cup more)

Optional Toppings

INSTRUCTIONS

In ½ cup of the warm water, pour in the sugar and yeast. Do not stir. Let it sit for five minutes, and then stir the yeast and sugar mixture until it all dissolves in the water

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast and sugar mixture.

Pour 1/3 cup of warm water into the well. Mix and stir in the rest of the water (the scant 1/2 cup that is remaining), as needed. Depending on where you live, you may need to add an additional couple tablespoons to about ¼ cup of water. You want a moist and firm dough after you have mixed it.

On a floured countertop, knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Try working in as much flour as possible to form a firm and stiff dough.

Lightly brush a large bowl with oil and turn the dough to coat. Cover the bowl with a damp dish towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size. Punch the dough down, and let it rest for another 10 minutes.

Carefully divide the dough into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round. Now, take a dough ball, and press it gently against the countertop moving your hand and the ball in a circular motion pulling the dough into itself while reducing the pressure on top of the dough slightly until a perfect dough ball forms. Repeat with 7 other dough rounds.

Coat a finger in flour, and gently press your finger into the center of each dough ball to form a ring. Stretch the ring to about ⅓ the diameter of the bagel and place on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Repeat the same step with the remaining dough.

After shaping the bagels and placing them on the cookie sheet, cover with a damp kitchen towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil ad 2-3 tablespoons brown sugar. Reduce the heat. Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to lower the bagels into the water. Boil as many as you are comfortable with boiling. Once the bagels are in, it shouldn’t take too long for them to float to the top (a couple seconds). Let them sit there for 1 minute, and then flip them over to boil for another minute. Extend the boiling times to 2 minutes each, if you’d prefer a chewier bagel.

If you want to add toppings to your bagels, do so as you take them out of the water. Alternatively, you can use an egg wash to get the toppings to stick before baking the bagels.

Once all the bagels have boiled (and have been topped with your choice of toppings), transfer them to an oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack

Essen Gezunterheit – Eat with health – Enjoy

May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)

Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)

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A young boy sat in class as the teacher was droning on about some obscure point in the Torah. The boy, out of boredom, began to daydream. Suddenly he heard the loud voice of the teacher as he asked the distracted student, “What becomes of the hole in a bagel, when one has eaten the bagel?”

This riddle, which seemed to be very hard to solve, stuck in the boy’s head. The boy tried to find an answer to the question, day and night. The boy often bought a bagel, took a bite out of it, and immediately replaced the bitten-out piece with his hand, so that the hole should not escape. Yet every time the boy had eaten up the bagel, the hole had somehow always disappeared. This frustrated the boy for a long time. The boy was so preoccupied by the question that he thought about it during prayers and at lessons.

At home, too, everyone noticed that the boy had lost his appetite, he ate nothing but bagels — bagels for breakfast, bagels for lunch, bagels for dinner, bagels all day long. They noticed that he ate the bagels with strange gestures and contortions of his mouth and my hands.

One day the boy gathered up all of his courage, and asked the teacher, in the middle of a Torah lesson:

“Nu, when one has eaten a bagel, what happens to the hole?”

“Why don’t you see the most obvious,” answered the teacher, “what is a hole in a bagel? Just nothing at all! A bit of emptiness! It’s nothing with the bagel and nothing without the bagel!”

Many years passed since then, and still the boy has not been able to satisfy himself as to what is the object of a hole in a bagel. As a young man he wondered if one could have bagels without holes. One lives and learns.

One day on his way to work, he saw in the window of a bakery, bagels without holes. He asked the baker about these bagels, and heard a most interesting history, which shows how difficult it is to get people to accept anything new, and what sacrifices it costs to introduce the smallest reform.

The baker explained:

A baker in a far off city took it into his head to make straight bagels, in the shape of breadsticks. This change from what was widely accepted cost him dearly. All the other bakers in that city immediately made a loud protest and organized a boycott of his bakery.

They argued: “Our fathers’ fathers baked bagels with holes, the whole world eats bagels with holes, and here comes a bold new thinker who upsets the order of the universe, and bakes bagels without holes! Have you ever heard of such disrespect? It’s just not right! If a person like this is allowed to go on, he will make an end of everything: today it’s bagels without holes, tomorrow it will be holes without bagels! Such a thing has never been known before!”

Because of the hole in a bagel, a storm broke out in that city that grew presently into such noise and violence.

The different leaders of the community joined in the conflict. Now the city was divided.

The Straight Bagel Party declared that a hole and a bagel constituted together a private affair, like religion, and that everyone had a right to bake bagels as he thought best, and according to his conscience.

The other side, the Pro-Hole Bagel party maintained, that to sell bagels without holes was against the constitution, to which the Straight Bagel Party replied that the constitution should be altered, as being too ancient, and contrary to the spirit of the times.

At this the Pro-Hole Bagel Party raised an uproar, crying that the rules could not be altered, because they were Toras-Lokshen and every letter, every stroke, every dot was a law in itself!

The media in the city felt they were obliged to report daily accounts of the meetings that were held to discuss the hole in a bagel, and the media also took sides, and fiercely reported on the subject. The quarrel spread throughout the city, until everyone was strongly divided into two parties, the Pro-Hole Bagel party and the Straight Bagel party.

Children rose against their parents, wives against their husbands, friends severed their ties with friends, families were broken up, and still the battle rages — and all on account of the hole in a bagel!

Now they’re fighting over toppings – poppy seeds, onion, sesame seeds, garlic or just a little of everything.

Bagels From Scratch

8 cups flour		1 tablespoon salt
2-3 tablespoons sugar		1 tablespoon yeast
2 cups lukewarm potato water		1 cup oil
4 eggs, slightly beaten		2-3 tablespoons honey
2 quarts boiling water		Bagel toppings (onion, poppy seeds, garlic, sesame seeds)

Directions

Sift together dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
Proof yeast in one third of the potato water and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (Potato water is water in which peeled potatoes have cooked). Plain water may be used, but it is not as good.
Add to the dry ingredients.
Add oil to the remaining potato water and stir into the flour mixture.
Add eggs and stir briskly to form a ball of dough.
Knead on a lightly floured board for 10 minutes. This must be a firm dough; add more flour if necessary.
Return to the bowl, smooth side up. Cover with a tea towel and let rise at room temperature until the dough rises to about 1 ½ its size.
Knead again on a lightly floured board until smooth and elastic (as for rolls).
Pinch off pieces of dough and roll between the palms to form ropes about 6 inches long and ¾ inch wide. Pinch the ends together firmly to make a doughnut shape.
Add honey to boiling water. Drop bagels into the water one at a time.
As they come to the surface, turn them over. Boil 1 minute longer on the second side.
Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees until the crust is golden brown and crisp 10 to 15 minutes).
Bagels may be sprinkled with poppy seed or sesame seed before baking, if desired.
Makes about 30.