I recently bought Pete Reinhart's book The Baker's Apprentice and while flipping through it found a recipe for New York style bagels. And the instructions were over three pages long!!! I was up for a challenge, so went on the hunt for Barley Malt Syrup which I did not find at our HEB, but did find at our Whole Foods. Apparently barley malt is the key to making authentic tasting bagels, but honey could be used as a substitute. I think the hunt was worth it though as the bagels had a delicious "malty" flavor that I don't think honey could have accomplished.
I found the recipe also on Epicurious HERE, so you can refer to that. The only difference is I made a "sponge" first. The book calls for about two hours and I found my sponge took 3.5 hours. I didn't get started till 8:30 at night, so this was a late night for me, but waking up and making the bagels was a really fun thing to do and the hubs loved them. I halved the recipe since it's just two of us this weekend, but I'm thinking these could be a fun surprise to make for the office.
The sponge I made using the following (keep in mind I halved the ingredients):
Sponge
1/2 teaspoon yeast
2 cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour (see note below)
1 1/4 cups water, room temperature
This is what the sponge should look like. This took 3.5 hours... I was pretty tired.
I did the hand wrap method as I think they make better, larger holes.
Boiling the bagels. The one in the back dried out a bit overnight so was a wee bit knobby looking, but still tasted great. I boiled them two minutes then flipped and boiled two more minutes.
Sprinkled poppy seeds and Cypress salt and ready to bake!
Crispy outside, chewy inside and so good! The hardest part was waiting 30 minutes to dig in while they cooled. These definitely take some major planning and time, but were all worth it! I can't wait to experiment with other flavor like jalapeno cheddar or garlic.
Very impressive!
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