I have always been a huge fan of bagels, but I was terrified of yeasted dough for the longest time. What if they don’t rise? What if the end product is horrible and my efforts were all for naught? I surely don’t want to waste my time, and I also don’t want to waste yours. That’s where this recipe comes in. These easy tasty bagels are here to end your stress about yeast; they’re here to deliver a product that’s a much better option than preservative riddled grocery store bagels; they’re also entirely customizable to your taste. I want you to feel empowered in the kitchen, in charge of what you’re baking. Whether it be with wee yeast beasties, or traditional leaveners, I want you to feel confident with your baking.
A Brief History of Yeast
As most of you know, yeast is actually a bacteria that works to give rise to your dough. It is through the process of ethanol fermentation that the bread is able to rise. Interestingly enough, there are 160 known species of yeast, but the only one we are concerned about is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, otherwise known as baker’s yeast. Although we normally see yeast as tiny “pellets”, the bacteria itself is extraordinarily tiny. Just one gram of yeast pellets holds the equivalent of about 25 BILLION yeast cells.
But how does yeast work?
The yeast bacteria consume sugars in the dough, depending on what type of dough you’re making it will either feed off of the natural sugars that are already found in the flour, or they will feast on added granulated sugar. When the yeast “eats” the sugars in the dough, it breaks them down to produce ethanol and carbon dioxide as its “waste products”. For the kids, the yeast eats sugar and toots carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide bubbles that the yeast leaves behind are what give rise to the dough, forming tiny little bubbles into the glutinous structure of the dough, expanding it in a foam-like structure.
As you can guess, if there is not a lot of sugar, then the yeast has little food available to it, and consequently, the dough will rise incredibly slowly, or almost not at all. This type of limited-sugar yeast activity is noticed in pizza dough where no sugar is added, save for the small amount of natural sugars present in flour. Though the pizza dough does not rise as significantly as it could with sugar, the lack of sugar and therefore lack of yeast activity is what gives pizza crust its signature chewy texture.
Sugar + Yeast
It is important to note that though sugar provides food for the yeast to grow and be active, too much sugar can actually inhibit the yeast. Sugar competes with yeast for the available water in the dough, so there is a threshold as to how much sugar you can add without stressing the yeast’s access to water. Sweet doughs like Hawaiian bread or brioches increase the amount of yeast necessary to compensate for the higher sugar levels. A dough is considered to be sweet when it contains over 1/2 a cup of sugar per every 4 cups of flour, and if the ratio of sugar to flour is higher than this, an additional packet of yeast per recipe is needed to compensate. If you really like this stuff and want to read more about it, check this out.
How do I treat my yeast right?
Needing to have the perfect ratio of sugar to yeast and yeast to flour and water to yeast and water to flour and so on and so forth is truly what makes bread baking so finnicky. The important thing that you should know is that I have taken care of these ratios for you. You don’t need to worry if you have too much of one thing or too little of another. I have that all sorted out for you. What you do need to worry about is two important things: temperature and age. If the yeast is old, your bread will struggle to rise. If your temperature is wrong, your bread might not rise at all. The ideal temperature for yeast activity is between 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit (32-35 degrees Celsius). If your dough is cold, the yeast’s reaction activity will be hindered. This will make it take forever for your dough to rise. On the other hand, you do not want to have a temperature over 115 degrees Fahrenheit. This puts you at severe risk of killing your yeast and subsequently having a dough that does not rise. That is why it’s important to make sure that the water you’re adding to your dough is warm, not hot. And you must allow your dough to rise in a warm spot. Fresh yeast is best to bake with; however, you can use sealed yeast up to 2 years after purchasing. Or you can use open packets of yeast up to four months after opening. As long as you are keeping track of your yeast’s age and the water temperature, you should be ready to go to make these easy tasty bagels.
Let’s make some easy tasty bagels!
Now that all of your fears are subsided, and you are well-versed on all things yeast, let’s get you baking! These easy tasty bagels have the perfect amount of chew and are good for any meal. Cream cheese bagel for breakfast, avocado bagel for lunch, and a bagel with lox for dinner? Count me in! You can dress these bagels up or down. You can keep it as simple as a plain bagel, or step it up to a cinnamon sugar french-toast bagel. The opportunities for creativity are ENDLESS.
Easy Tasty Bagels
Ingredients
For the Bagels:
- 1 teaspoon Diastatic Malt Powder (optional)
- 1½ teaspoons Instant Yeast
- 1½ teaspoons Kosher Salt
- 1 cup Warm Water (ideally it should be 90-95°F)
- 3¼ cups All-Purpose Flour (bread flour also works)
For the Poaching Liquid:
- 8 cups Water
- 1 tablespoon Honey
- 2 tablespoons Baking Soda
Toppings:
- 1 Egg White (optional)
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer add the water and sprinkle the yeast on top. Whisk the yeast into the water, making sure to break apart any clumps for even distribution.
- Add the salt and diastatic malt powder (if using) and whisk together until entirely dissolved.
- With the stand mixer running (at about a speed of 3), add ½ cup of flour at a time until you have added 3 total cups.
- When the 3 cups of flour have been added and you have a shaggy dough, let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
- After the dough has rested for 5 minutes and the gluten has been able to relax, pour the ¼ cup of flour on a flat surface, and knead the dough on top of this flour until all of it is incorporated and you have a smooth and supple dough.
- Form the dough into a taught ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise in a warm area for an hour to an hour and a half, or until double in size. In the summertime, I like putting my covered dough bowl outside in the shade for its rise, and in the winter, I will leave the dough bowl on top of my stove with the oven set at 300°F so the residual heat gives it a warmer environment.°
- Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and divide the dough into uniform balls. If you are going to add ingredients to the inside of your bagel like blueberries or chocolate chips, add them now, rolling them into your dough balls as you work them into their correct shape and try to make sure you get an even distribution of the ingredients throughout the dough.
- Depending on the size of your bagels, this recipe will make between 6 and 8. I make sure my bagel balls weigh anywhere between 100 grams and 130 grams.
- Once you have between 6 and 8 smoothly rolled balls of dough, cover all of them with a moist paper towel except for the one you are going to start working on first.
- Punch a hole in the middle of the dough ball with your first finger and your thumb, then stick both index fingers into the space and roll while pulling the sides apart, widening the hole to about 2 inches in diameter.
- Set the holed bagels on a greased baking sheet, there is no need to cover the bagels once they have their hole. Repeat this process for all of the bagels until each has a hole in the center.
- Allow the bagels to rise again, uncovered, for another 1-1½ hours or until very puffed. You will notice that the bagel now has a skin of "dried" dough on the outside, but this is good because it helps give the bagels their signature crust.A way to make even better bagels is to give them a slow rise in the fridge. If you want to do this method, cover the bagels right after you have punched holes in them and place the entire tray of bagels in the fridge overnight. When you are ready to bake them in the morning, take them out of the fridge and allow them to rise for 30 minutes uncovered on your counter top before proceeding to the next step.
- Once the bagels are puffed and risen, they are now ready to be boiled and then baked.
- Preheat the oven to 450°F and line a large baking pan with parchment paper, or oil it well. DO NOT SKIP USING EITHER OIL OR PARCHMENT PAPER OR ELSE BAGELS WILL STICK HORRIBLY.
- In a large pot, (I use an ovular 5 quart pot) add the water, honey, and baking soda from the poaching liquid ingredient section.
- Bring this mixture to a boil.
- Once the poaching liquid is boiling, place 2-3 bagels in at a time depending on the surface area of your pot, and boil each bagel for 30 seconds per side. When the total 1 minute of boiling has elapsed, remove the bagels with a slotted spatula and gently place them on top of the parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat until all bagels are boiled.
- When all bagels are boiled you can now add your toppings. If you are going to use seeded toppings (like sesame seeds or everything seasoning), or toppings that might fall off easily, lightly brush the top of the boiled bagel with egg white before adding the topping. If you are using a cheese topping, you can just sprinkle the cheese right on top.
- Once the bagels are boiled and they have the desired toppings, bake them in the oven for a total time of 15-20 minutes, rotating the baking tray 180° after the first 8 minutes.
- Allow to cool for 30 minutes before enjoying!
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