Does anyone make their own bagels?

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagel


The two most prominent styles of traditional bagel in North America are the Montreal bagel and the New York-style bagel. The Montreal bagel contains malt and egg but no salt; it is boiled in honey-sweetened water before baking in a wood oven; and it is predominantly either of the poppy "black" or sesame "white" seeds variety. The New York bagel contains salt and malt and is boiled in water prior to baking in a standard oven. The resulting New York bagel is puffy with a noticeable crust, while the Montreal bagel is smaller (though with a larger hole), chewier, and sweeter. Poppy seeds are sometimes called by their Yiddish name, spelled either mun or mon.

At its most basic, traditional bagel dough contains wheat flour (without germ or bran), salt, water, and yeast leavening. Most bagel recipes call for the addition of a sweetener to the dough, often barley malt (syrup or crystals), honey, or sugar. Leavening can be accomplished using either a sourdough technique or using commercially produced yeast.

Bagels are traditionally made by:

* mixing and kneading the ingredients to form the dough
* shaping the dough into the traditional bagel shape, round with a hole in the middle
* proofing the bagels for at least 12 hours at low temperature (40-50 degrees F = 4.5-10 C)
* boiling each bagel in water that may or may not contain additives such as lye, baking soda, barley malt syrup, or honey
* baking at between between 175 C and 315 C (about 350 to 600 degrees F)

This makes it sound kind of easy. Does anyone have any experience?

[Blarg]

Lye? Wow.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Food uses of lye include washing or chemical peeling of fruits and vegetables, chocolate and cocoa processing, caramel color production, poultry scalding, soft drink processing, and thickening ice cream. Olives are often soaked in lye to soften them, while pretzels and German lye rolls are glazed with a lye solution before baking to make them crisp.

Specific foods processed with lye include:

* The Scandinavian delicacy known as lutefisk (from lutfisk, "lye fish").
* Hominy is dried maize (corn) kernels reconstituted by soaking in lye-water. These expand considerably in size and may be further processed by cooking in hot oil and salting to form corn nuts. Nixtamal is similar, but uses calcium hydroxide instead of sodium hydroxide.
* Hominy is also known in some areas of the Southeastern United States, as the breakfast food grits, dried and ground into a coarse powder. They are prepared by boiling in water, with the addition of butter and other ingredient to suit the tastes of the preparer.
* Sodium hydroxide is also the chemical that causes gelling of egg whites in the production of Century eggs.
* German pretzels are poached in a boiling sodium hydroxide solution before baking, which contributes to their unique crust.

[SpaceAce]

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This makes it sound kind of easy. Does anyone have any experience?

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The article you quoted actually seems to be more complicated recipe than I've ever used. Check http://www.cdkitchen.com/ for some good, basic bagel recipes.

SpaceAce

[edfurlong]

There are five steps. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[2/325Falcon]

No spices? Must be white people food.

[SamIAm]

I once took extra homemade pizza dough, shaped it into bagels, boiled 'em, and baked them. They turned out surprisingly well.

I didn't use lye or nothin'.

[Dudd]

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No spices? Must be white people food.

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Jewish racism ban plz.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

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There are five steps. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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five steps is too complicated or too simple?