The Best Homemade Bagels
Bagels are a food which evoke strong emotions in many people. This simple boiled roll has spread far and wide and, in the process, has led to development of many styles, each of which has their advocates. The most iconic are the New York Bagel, with its characteristic combination of a soft, chewy interior surrounded by a crisp crust, and the Montreal bagel, which is sweeter, thinner, and denser.
I appreciate both styles, but it's the former that is my iconic representation of a bagel. In most cities, including Boston, good bagels are hard to find. My quest to perfect a homemade bagel has stretched over a decade, with many failures. My fortunes turned with Stella Parks' bagel recipe. She included the unorthodox approach of incorporating a yukone, where a small amount of flour and water are cooked into a gel prior to incorporation into the final dough. This approach is typically reserved for enriched bread but was touted as enabling Stella's bagels to have an extended shelf life. Since I usually freeze any uneaten bagels the same day, this feature wasn't particularly appealing to me, but it didn't matter: the bagels turned out perfectly. The size was also ideal: not the mammoth rings churned out by many bakeries.
I followed the recipe as written for some time, with occasional minor tweaks and experimentation. I used high-gluten flour in place of conventional bread flour to add a bit more chewiness. I used egg white or a starch slurry to ensure that the toppings stuck better. I flipped the bagels mid-cook to allow them to be topped on both sides and produce a more symmetric result. However, the process remained labor-intensive, and I wondered how it could be streamlined.
I prioritized the key steps I found frustrating: the time-consuming preparation of the yukone and the use of the food processor, which both limited the ability to scale the recipe significantly and led to a more involved cleaning process than the use of a stand mixer. I now use this approach on a near-weekly basis.
Yukone:
- 300 g boiling water
- 150 g bread flour
Dough:
- 100 g cool water
- 485 g bread flour
- 15 g vital wheat gluten
- 25 g sugar
- 15 g salt
- 4 g yeast
Water bath (scale as needed for your pot):
- 5 L water
- 40 g non-diastatic malt powder or 50 g barley malt syrup
Directions
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the boiling water and flour for the yukone and stir to form a smooth paste. Cover and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.
Add the remaining dough ingredients and mix at low speed for approximately 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic.
Weigh the dough. Working with one piece at a time, slice off a portion of dough corresponding to 1/12th the total weight (usually about 86 g) and pinch the ends together into a rough ball shape.
With the seam side down, roll the ball on the counter in a circular motion to smooth out the bottom until no seam remains. If the dough is hard to seal, moisten the countertop with water and continue rolling for about 20 more seconds.
Place the dough ball on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Continue the process until all the dough is used up. Limit the number of dough balls per baking sheet to 8 for a 13 * 18 inch half sheet.
Keep the dough balls covered with a sheet pan lid or plastic wrap and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Working one dough ball at a time, push your thumb into the center all the way through to the bottom to form a hole. Gentle stretch the resulting dough ring to about 3-4 inches. Once you have stretched all the dough balls into rings, cover with a lid or greased plastic wrap and refrigerate for 18-24 hours.
The next day, preheat the oven to 450 °F and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the malt powder or malt syrup.
Remove the bagels from the fridge.
Working with as many as you can fit in the pot without crowding, add the bagels top-side down into the water. They should float right away or within 30 seconds (if they don't, increase the time in the refrigerator next time or use more/fresher yeast). After 30 seconds, flip the bagels with a metal spider or slotted soon and boil for another 30 seconds. Remove to a rack, top side up.
If you are topping the bagels, brush the top surface lightly with egg white and add your toppings.
Place the bagels top-side down on a parchment-lined baking sheet and brush the bare bottom side with egg white, then add topping to this side.
Once all the bagels are done, cook in the oven.
After about 10 minutes, remove the baking sheet, flip each of the bagels, and rotate the pan 180 degrees.
Cook for about 10 more minutes, until a nice brown crust develops. Remove the tray from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool. It may be tempting to dig in right away, but the texture improves if you give them at least 10-15 minutes or to cool.
Options
Not interested in topping the bagels?
Place the boiled bagels top-side up on to parchment, leave out the egg white glaze, and ignore the instructions to flip the bagels halfway through cooking.
Only want to top one side?
After the initial egg white glaze and topping, place the topped bagels top-side up on the parchment, and ignore the instructions to flip the bagels halfway through cooking.
Want to keep the bagels vegan?
Instead of egg white, add 2 g of modified tapioca starch to 50 g of water, and mix until the starch is dissolve. It tends to clump, but if you mash the clumps with a spoon, they eventually dissolve.
Want to use a sourdough starter?
I don't recommend using a starter as the sole source of leavening in this recipe, but feel free to replace some of the flour and water with leftover starter for added flavor.
Storage and Reheating
Once fully cooled, the bagels can be placed in freezer bags and frozen. I reheat mine from frozen, directly in the toaster oven, unsliced, for about 8-10 minutes. Individual ovens vary greatly, so this may not work for yours. An instant-read thermometer is helpful for ensuring you won't encounter still-frozen bread in the core of your bagel (I aim to get the center somewhere in the range of 120-180 °F).
