Homemade Bagels

[Lisa in Ft. Worth, T]

Anyone have experience making them? I would like to learn how as I'm getting weary of paying over $3 for one package!

I'd love to hear of any tips you have up your sleeves! :yes:

[Lindy]

me too! me too! :)

[Merrilee Morse]

I found what looked like TWO good recipes online, and both were a disaster. Sometime back, a thread was started, I don't remember if it was here or another message board I belong to, and the consensus from virtually everyone was that bagels are just too darn hard to do at home. First they rise, then you boil them, then you bake them. Mine turned out flat and tasteless, and I am not exactly a novice when it comes to bread or cooking.

[Carol S]

The one batch of whole wheat I made didn't turn out to my liking. I need to try again. I didn't think the process was too difficult, but I'm wondering if the packaged bagels we're used to are just so processed that they don't bear much resemblance to their less-processed ancestors. :unsure:

Anyway, I will try it again sometime, but I think I'll give in and use 1/2 ww and half all-purpose flour or bread flour and see what I think. The kids don't balk at hardly anything I make with whole wheat, but they all hated these, and I couldn't blame them.

[Merrilee Morse]

Carol, I have never used the packaged ones, I am used to the ones from a real New York Jewish bagel shop, and mine bore zero resemblance.

[Kristine In Indiana]

I've heard that they are hard to make also, so I don't even try. My kids will eat cheap bagels from the bread store, but I don't really buy them that often. I prefer a GOOD bagel from Panera Bread.

Kristine

[Lisa in Ft. Worth, T]

Oh my! This is NOT the news I expected to see when I came to check on my posting. :lol:

I'm going to try my other message board. If I find out anything positive, I'll report back, Ladies.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. :)

[Carol S]

Merrilee, the closest to non-grocery-store bagels I've had is Einstein Bros. and Panera. I really don't have much ambition to go to NY, but if I ever do, you can bet I'm going to hunt me down a seriously authentic bagel!!

[Barb Cash]

Maybe PM Gwen in Texas and ask her! I am pretty sure she has made hers quite a bit! :)

[Jo in PRC]

Don't despair! I make my own and they are not difficult at all. I use a recipe from the "How to Make Everything" cookbook. I think people get freaked out about the boiling step, but it is not hard. I just get a pan of water boiling, drop in the bagels two at a time, scoop them out onto a rack and then transfer them to the baking sheets. They usually aren't as perfectly round as the purchased ones, though I'm sure if I was more of a perfectionist I could do a better job at that. :lol: I like to add different things like whole wheat or bran or raisins and cinnamon or cranberries. You can do this!

[Merrilee Morse]

Well ladies my dh just got me the Martha Stewart Complete Baking Guide as an anniversary gift, and guess what? One of the recipes is for homemade bagels! At some point, I will try it out and if the recipe is good at all, I will let you all know. Boiling the dough was never intimidating to me at all; but after the dough came out of the water, it fell flat, never to rise again! I had flat bagels! :lol:

[Becky Jane]

Interesting thread! I've wanted to try my hand at bagels for a long time, but haven't tried them yet. My daughter was just asking me last week if we could try to make some at home. I follow this blog (http://smittenkitchen.com) quite a bit (great recipes and musings!), and and I remembered this entry from last fall. I had bookmarked it. (Hadn't actually tried it yet, but I had bookmarked it! :lol: )

Anyway, ya'll have inspired me to go ahead and give it a whirl. I like the looks of this recipe...and her reasoning behind it.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/09/bronx-worthy-bagels/

I'll let you know! ;)

[Hollee in VA]

and the family seems to love them...I don't care very much for the plain type but we do all love the parmesan/garlic ones that I make the most. I make them several times a week...they are not as big as store bought ones but after you get used to that, they are really quite good. I use the recipe on AllRecipes.com for bread machine bagels.

Here is a link I will try to do, I have not done many,http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bread-Machine-Bagels/Detail.aspx

I changed the recipe a little bit, instead of sugar in the recipe, I use 2 Tb honey, I put 3 Tb sugar into the water when it is boiling. I also increase the warm water to 1 cup + 1/8 cup To make the parm/garlic kind, I add 1/4 cup parmesan cheese and a big dollop of minced garlic to the bread machine too.

I let the dough rest about 10 minutes before forming into bagels and I also end up making about 12 instead of 9....it is a better portion size for us. I let it rise about 30 minutes before boiling for 1 minute on each side. I let them cool for a few minutes on a towel and then transfer them to a greased cookie sheet. Then I put a little bit of olive oil on each one and sprinkle with more parmesan cheese.

To make onion bagels, I add some onion powder and minced onions to the basic recipe,
for cinnamon raisin, I add a couple TBs of cinnamon and about 1/4 cup raisins (our family doesn't really like raisins much) and put a bit more honey in the dough,

These don't taste like store bought but we like them and eat them pretty much every day. Mostly we cut them in half and top the halves with an egg...

If any of this doesn't make sense, I'll try to re explain, I'm distracting myself while dh and the kids are at church by being online, but still not thinking with my whole brain.

[Gwen in Texas]

Maybe PM Gwen in Texas and ask her! I am pretty sure she has made hers quite a bit! :)

I didn't even feel my ears burning! :lol:

First, I must admit that one of my New Year's resolutions is to cook LESS. Yes, that's right. I'm doing very well with it too. Tonight we had company for dinner and I had to think long and hard to come up with something beyond baked potato/salad, crockpot bean soup or frito pie! :lol:

So, in all honesty I have to tell you that our bagels now come from the Kroger freezer section when they are on sale for $1/bag. :blush:

When I made our bagels from scratch, I found the key was to boil them in a cast iron skillet. This strange but true information (and more) I learned from this book (which I picked up at a garage sale) : http://www.amazon.com/Best-Bagels-Nitty-Gritty-Cookbooks/dp/1558671315

HTH! :)