Name: Best Ever Bagel Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Ingredients: 3 cup All Purpose Flour; 1.5 tsp Dry Yeast; 2 tsp Salt; 1 tbsp Golden Syrup or Sugar; 1 cup Warm Water; Water for boiling; 4 tbsp Treacle; 1 tbsp Baking Soda; ¼ cup Sesame Seeds; ¼ cup Poppy seeds; 1 tsp Sea salt flakes as needed; ¼ cup Granulated Onion; 3 tbsp Caraway Seeds; 2 cups All Purpose Flour / Maida; 1½ tsp Dry Yeast; 1 tbsp Sugar; Salt to taste; 1 Egg; ½ cup Warm Milk; Water - as needed; Sesame Seeds or Poppy Seeds

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"Best Ever Homemade Bagels is super crusty outside and fluffy & chewy in the middle. This homemade bagels is perfect to serve with a cup of coffee or tea or enjoy as a breakfast with some cream cheese or make this veggie and cheese bagel sandwiches."

Homemade Bagels Recipe

Bagels are super amazing. I love making bagels and any bread, not only they are therapeutic to make. but it is super tasty too. Making bread can be so soothing, but there are few tips and tricks to get perfect bread all the time.

Table of Contents

What is a Bagel

A bagel also historically spelled beigel, is a bread product originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. It is traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, that is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior. Bagels are often topped with seeds baked on the outer crust, with the traditional ones being poppy and sesame seeds. Some may have salt sprinkled on their surface, and there are different dough types, such as whole-grain and rye.

Homemade Bagels Water Bath

Bagels must cook for 30 seconds on each side in a pot of boiling water. This is actually the most important step in the whole recipe. Why?

Boiling the bagels gives the bagel its beautiful shine. Also it make sure the bagels are chewy when baked.
Boiling bagels cooks the outer layer of dough, which guarantees they’ll hold their shape in the oven.

Add honey or barley malt syrup to the water bath. Why? The sugar adds extra caramelization and crisp. I like to add treacle to the water which gives beautiful colour to the bagel when baked without the egg wash itself.

Brushing the boiled bagels with egg wash does the same.

Check out more Homemade Bagels Recipe

Homemade Bagels Varieties

Plain Bagels: Follow the recipe below.
Cinnamon Raisin Bagels: Add 2 tsp of cinnamon powder and ½ cup of raisins into the dough when mixing. Also once bagels are baked, sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar if needed.
Everything Bagels: Add everything bagel seasoning into the bagel dough, also coat the poached bages in everything bagel seasoning.
Sesame Seed Bagels: coat bagel is sesame seeds. black or white anything can be used.
Poppy Seed Bagels
Salt Bagels: Use sea salt flakes.Don't use fine salt. Coat the poached bagel in salt and bake.
Cheese Bagels: Add ½ cup of shredded cheese to the dough when you add the flour. sprinkle with extra cheese on top and bake.

One of the questions which I often get is Why my bread is not rising. Why my dough is not doubling up. Why my bread is dense.

The answer for all those questions is activating yeast. Activating yeast is so easy. Just follow these steps.

1)take warm water in a bowl. Use Luke warm water. Dip your finger in the water and it should be very warm. Just like a warm bath water.

2)sprinkle little sweetness like sugar, honey. Because yeast loves warm and sweet environment.

3)now sprinkle yeast over it. I use dry yeast.

4) leaves aside for 5 mins to activate. The yeast mix should be bubbly and foamy. This means yeast is activated.

If your mixture doesn’t look foamy.

1)Then you must have added yeast to too hot water so the yeast has died.

2)You have used cold water so yeast didn’t activated.

3)or your yeast is expired.

Always store yeast in freezer in an air right container.

How to Make Bagels at Home

Bread Dough: mix all ingredients to form a dough. knead it well for 5 mins till dough is soft and smooth.
Fermentation: leave the dough to rise for at least 2 hours.
Pre shaping: once dough is risen, shape it into small balls and roll each ball into a rope like, then bring edges together and seal it smooth.
Refrigeration: you might need to put the shaped dough rings into the fridge to make the rising process slow down.
Poaching liquid: bring water, treacle, baking soda in a pot to a boil.
Poaching Technique: you need to poach bagels in the water for 30 seconds on each side.
Bagel toppings: prepare bagel toppings by mixing variety of ingredients together. coat the poached bagels in the topping and bake.
Baking to perfection: bake the bagels till it is golden brown, the treacle in the poaching liquid will help the bagel get golden colour.
Serve: serve the bagels hot.

You can enjoy bagels straight out of the oven. HOMEMADE & FRESH!

Next Day you can toast them, spread with some cream cheese and enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.

Delicious Ways to Top a Bagel That Go Beyond Cream Cheese

Strawberries + chocolate-hazelnut spread + chopped hazelnuts
Cinnamon Cream Cheese + Apple
Egg + Cheese
Smoked Salmon + Cream Cheese
Tomato+ Onion + Cream Cheese + Avocado
Pasta Sauce + Cheese
Peanut Butter Jelly

Hope you will give this a try and let me know how it turns out for you.

If you have any questions not covered in this post and if you need help, leave me a comment or mail me @[email protected] and I’ll help as soon as I can.

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Traditional Bagels Making Step by Step Pictures

1)Take warm water in a bowl.

2)Add in little honey or golden syrup or sugar

3)Whisk well till combined.

4)Sprinkle over some yeast.

5)Leave it to rest for 5 mins.

6)Now the yeast has started to activate.

7)Leave it for 5 mins till yeast activates.

8)Add in salt.

9)Add in flour

10)Mix well.

11)Now it is combined.

12)Take it on a work surface.

13)Start kneading. Knead by pressing your heels on the dough and strech.

14)Now the dough become smooth.

15)Place it on the bowl, leave to rise for 1 to 2 hours till it doubles in size.

16)Now it is risen

16)Punch back the dough.

17)Divide the dough into small portion.

18)Divide it into equal portions.

19)Take a small portion of dough.

20)Shape it like a log, roll it to a bagel shape.

21)Make sure you stretch the dough so the holes of the bagel is large

22)Now all bagels are shaped. You can place this in fridge for at least 1 hour. This step is optional.

23)This is after 1 hour. Remove it from fridge 15 minutes before poaching.

24)Mix up bagel seasoning. I have poppy seeds, caraway seeds, sesame seeds, granulated onion, sea salt flakes.

25)Mix well so it is combined.

26)Now lets make the poaching liquid. Boil water.

27)Add in treacle or golden syrup.

28)Leave to boil

29)Add in baking soda

30)Mix well.

31)Boil for 1 min.

32)Take bagel

33)Drop it in the treacle water

34)Cook for 30 seconds.

35)Flip over and cook.

36)Drain it.

37)Immediately coat in the mix.

38)Coat it well.

39)Coat well and arrange it in a baking tray

40)Pop it in oven and bake.

41)Baked to perfection.

42)Serve

How to Make 1 Hour Bagels Recipe

I am a crazy fan of poh, I never miss her cooking show poh's kitchen. On one of her episode she made this amazing bagel recipe, which was quite simple. I was looking to bake this for quite a long time. And finally baked it few weeks back, the result was so dense, chewy and totally yummy. I had few warm, and popped few in the freezer to make some yummy sandwiches.

I made a yummy veg cheese bagel sandwich and chicken strip burger using this bagels. Will share them very soon. Then one morning I made a fried egg with cheese and stuffed that between the bagel and had it. It was amazing. You have to try that. Until then I am leaving you with the recipe of this yummy bagel.