"Bagels"

The picture above is a bagel. However, it is not a bagel in the traditional sense of the word. There is no hole in the middle (that just makes these too hard to make), and they hardly taste like bagels, but they do taste like delicious. The above is a cinnamon sugar bagel that was the result of some complicated cinnamon sugar experiment. You certainly don't have to be as crazy as we are, and in fact I would suggest you don't. We kind of went a little bit overboard. But that's okay, because the bagels were delicious. So don't even worry about it, you will be warned about which parts to skip if you don't want to be insane.

Ingredients: Corn Meal, Vegetable Shortening, Bread Flour, Butter, Sugar, Yeast, Cinnamon, Brown Sugar


Mix some warm water with yeast and sugar. Let it sit for about five minutes so that the yeast can eat the sugar and grow up big and strong.

Now add some of the flour. Not all of it, because that would be insanity.

Now add the rest of it and put the bread hook on the mixer. Now this next part gets a little weird because we think bagel dough is hard to knead. If you have the skills to do this without being crazy, go right ahead. The point is, knead the dough for 10 minutes.

The dough is really not at all cohesive at all, so our suggestion is to knead it by hand for a minute or two...

...and then stick it back in the mixer for the rest of the time. If you want anything in the bagels (chocolate chips, blueberries, cinnamon/raisin, etc.) It will look not at all like dough when it is in the mixer, so when it comes out of the mixer...

...knead it a little bit to make it all cohesive again.
Cover and let rise. Only, you won't really be able to tell that it's risen. Because this dough is sneaky.
Now here's where we started experimenting. Our goal was to make an intensely cinnamon sugar "bagel" and we had no clue how to do that, so we experimented. Our first cinnamon sugar mixture consisted of cinnamon, brown sugar and butter.


Our second started out as cinnamon and sugar...

...but then had some melted butter added to it to make it into crumbles. Now after we made the bagels we figured out that the crumbles would be good to put on the bagels ofter they came out of the oven, because putting them on the bagels before was just silly as they melt (duh).

Bring a pot of water to boil (theres some sugar and salt in the water too) this might take a while as there is a lot of water to be boiled. A lot. As in 16 cups.

Form the dough into eight of whatever shape you like (that's the nice thing about homemade, you can make all sorts of crazy shapes) and let them rise again, covered, while the water comes to a boil.

Boil your bagels! Mmmm, doesn't that look tasty? (By the way, the answer is no)

This is where we make the bagels insanely tasty. If you don't want cinnamon sugar, you could put any number of things on them. Sesame seeds, onions, poppy seeds, cheese, etc. We coated the bagels in butter, then in cinnamon sugar,

Next, we covered them in brown sugar/butter/cinnamon, then crumbled some crumbles on top. Bake for about 25 minutes on a cookie sheet that has been coated in cornmeal. If you do follow the same procedure as us, be warned, the cinnamon sugar will melt all over the cookie sheet. This isn't a big deal however if you scrape the burned sugar off the sheet with a spatula right away. If you don't do so, the sugar will harden and never come off. Ever.

This is a picture of a bagel that has been cut in half and completely covered in creme cheese. This is the only way to eat a bagel. (Not really, but creme cheese is practically the best thing ever.) These bagels aren't sesame seed, but when you make yours, you should make sesame seed bagel in honor of Mitch Hedberg. Because he's cool.


"Bagels" (Joy of Cooking)

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp warm (105° to 115° F) water
1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 Tbsp melted vegetable shortening (Crisco)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 cup bread flour
3 to 3 1/2 cups bread flour
4 quarts water
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal

Combine water yeast and sugar in a bowl and let sit for five minutes. Stir in shortening, sugar, salt, and 1 cup bread flour. Gradually stir in the rest of the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes by hand or with the dough hook. Let rest, covered, fro 10 to 15 minutes. Divide dough into 8 pieces and form into shapes. Let rise, covered, on a floured board, for about 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 425. Bring water, sugar and salt to boil in a large pot. Drop about 4 bagels in at a time, wait till they rise to the surface, then let them cook for about 45 more seconds. Skim out and place on a cookie sheet coated with cornmeal. Bake 20-25 minutes. Consume.