There's A Hole In My Heart Where You Used To Be. The Bagel: A Love Story

There is this one round chewy luxury of a breakfast food that I have longed for ever since moving to Seattle: the bagel.  It seems that everywhere I have lived has had a local institution with their own special recipe secrets, unique clientele, and rituals that let you know you’re home. 

My first eye opening experience with the bagel was in college in Ohio.  Bagel And Deli was a fast paced little restaurant, as narrow as a hallway and always full of every walk of life.  With what seemed like hundreds of interesting options (like the Randy Ayers, Pig In The Mud, Missy’s Bloodbath, or the tribute to our local basketball star, The Szczerbiak), on any given night this place was in its bagel sandwich pressing groove.

A few years later, I spent several weeks with my friend Sara in New York City.  At the time, she lived on the Upper East Side, and to this day is as in love with a good bagel as I am.  Due to their carboliscious density, bagels have kind of a bad rap that never quite recovered from the Atkin’s push of the late ’90’s.  (Not to mention the irresistible delight of biting into softened cream cheese smeared all over the crunchy toasted bagel).  We would start the day by discussing our more responsible breakfast options, scanning the fridge and feigning dismay when we didn’t have the healthy ingredients.  One of us would suggest (as though we had just come up with it right then), that maybe we could just stop by the bagel place on her way to work.  It was so close to the green line stop, it just made sense.  And so we did.

Other delicious bagels come to mind over time as well.  While far from perfect, the Dunkin Donuts everything bagel was my first exposure to a bagel that did not come in a plastic sleeve of six.  After college, our mini reunions in Chicago often demanded bagels for our epic breakfast all day parties, with one or two of the ladies setting out into the windy cold to fetch a dozen from Einstein Bros.  And then there is Hole In The Wall, across from the shipyard in Rockland, Maine.  Going there always guaranteed a nice long view to the harbor and a chance to read the local paper cover to cover. 

Here in Seattle, I haven’t yet found a delicious bagel.  Based on my past memories, I would venture to say that I need a ritual to make any establishment legit.  So this time, I decided to make them myself.  I first made a list of all of my favorite things about a bagel.  Dense.  Flavorful.  Chewy.  Crunchy crust.  Tasty salty toppings.  Never cinnamon raisin.  Ever. 

I then turned to my most trusted bread book: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.  This book came to my rescue when I wanted to serve English muffins to our sailing guests.  I had an extra good feeling when I saw that their beauty shot of the finished bagels were presented on the same plates we had growing up. 

I wanted to make sure that this recipe would help create my dream bagel as described above.  I read that these would be dense, as the dough has a much lower liquid to flour ratio than any other bread, at around 50% (as opposed to 55-65%).  They would be flavorful because of the long, slow fermentation time in the fridge, allowing the malt and naturally occurring enzymes to work their magic developing flavor.  The chewiness would come from the slow but not too high rise, the dense dough, and the boiling before baking.  Chewy bagels are made from boiling before baking, while softer bagels are steamed first.  The recipe promised a crunchy crust as long as I boiled them in water with baking soda and baked them at a high temperature of 500 degrees.  Tasty toppings would be up to me, and I already had poppy, sesame, and cumin seeds, onion flake, and coarse salt and pepper standing by.

The Recipe
Sponge:
1 tsp  instant yeast
4 c  unbleached bread flour (I used AP)
2 1/2 c  water, room temperature

I mixed these together well and covered with plastic, leaving at room temperature for 2 hours until bubbly and almost doubled in size. 

Dough:
1/2 tsp  instant yeast
3 3/4 c  unbleached bread flour
2 3/4 tsp  salt
2 tsp  malt powder, malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar

Starting with the sponge, I made the dough by mixing in the yeast, followed by the salt, malt, and flour.  I saved the last 3/4 c of flour until I started kneading and slowly worked it in over 10 minutes.  Unlike many other doughs, this one was not tacky, but rather firm.

I then went on to divide the dough into 12 pieces and rounded them up into balls.  I covered them with a damp towel and walked away for 20 minutes.  (This time was spent calling my mother to tell her what I was doing.) 

Shaped and ready to go!

Boiling the bagels

To avoid going on for pages and pages, I’ll summarize the next steps and tell you that I shaped them into bagels, then covered and placed them in the fridge overnight.  In the morning I boiled a huge pot of water with a couple tablespoons of baking soda and boiled the dough in batches for two minutes per side.  I sprinkled the bagels with toppings and popped them in a 500 degree oven, rotating every five minutes until they were crusty and firm to tap, about 12 minutes. 

Finished bagels

Then I ate them.  The first one I went with the classic, just good quality butter.  The second one graduated to cream cheese status.  The rest have been enjoyed by Jaimy and myself, mostly bagel sandwiches with cream cheese, hard salami, sharp cheddar, and a fried egg.  I would have included a photo of it, but I am pretty sure my health insurance provider would drop me if they saw it.  I should probably make an appointment to get my cholesterol checked. 

What is your favorite bagel and where is it from?