Recipe tips: Bagels (the quest for the bagels of my childhood)

Hello fork musketeers!

Bagels! Omurgurdd!!

Bagels with Chef's instructions

Bagels with my knowledge of Montreal bagels.

Along with smoked meat, bagels are one of Montreal’s specialties. Montreal bagels are slightly sweet, dense and chewy and oh, so so tasty. When I was growing up, my father started his restaurant adventure in a building called Faubourg, located on St. Catherine and Guy. Just two stores down there was a small Mom and Pop Jewish bagel placed called The Bagel Shop. Every time my family wanted bagels, we would go to The Bagel Shop to satisfy our bagel craving. Unfortunately, they closed their doors about a year ago and I’ve miss those bagels ever since.

While I'm not claiming to be the bagel expert and I'm still a grasshopper in the art of breads, hopefully I can give you some tips on how to make your own bagels.

What's in a bagel?

There's something very special about bagels. Not only are they chewy and dense but they are a bit of an oddity in the bread world. Most breads tend to be fairly hydrated doughs - meaning the water to flour ratio is something like 700g:1000g, water and flour respectively, or 70% hydration. This is the ratio we used to make baguette and pain de campagne.

Bagels, however, tend to be around 50% hydration; some recipes are as low as 48% and as high as 55%. This is the only dough that's exceptionally dry and, if you're not careful, it can easily bust your electronic mixer due to its stiffness. As much as I like my modern-day conveniences, this is probably best done by hand unless you have a really powerful mixer on hand.

In addition to its low hydration level, it's also dipped or boiled in hot water - either sugar or lye I think - drained, garnished, then baked in a super hot oven. If you've seen the bagel places in Montreal, this is done in a wood oven. It gives a faint charcoal taste to the bagel. The dipping/boiling process helps make the bagel more dense.

That being said, bagels are dirt cheap to make. Their main ingredients are bread flour; sugar; maybe a dash of salt and yeast. From the recipes I've looked at, there's usually some malt powder/syrup which can be substituted with molasses and honey. Although, now that I think about it, I'd be curious if I could use gula melaka...

Supposedly the "unique" ingredients in Montreal bagels is the use of boiling syrup and eggs in the dough. I'll have to experiment.

Bagel tips

Mix in all your ingredients in the bowl. Your dough is going to look really shaggy and not pretty at all. Don't freak out though; just keep mixing until you have most of the flour incorporated. Then you can take it out the bowl and start kneading.

There are different ways of kneading; the way I do it is fold the front edge back onto the dough and press it in with the heel of my palm. Then turn the dough and repeat. You can totally look up some different methods for hand kneading to find the way you like the most.

This dough is really stiff. Since it's such a low hydration dough, it never really gets shiny like other doughs. Also, your folds will have a harder time getting incorporated into each other. I got so nervous when this first happened to me, I thought I had overkneaded the dough. After a few attempts, I think this is normal for this kind of dough. So don't fret and don't be afraid to be a little rough with your kneading. This particular dough is stiff and, in general, dough is tough.

That being said, as you knead, the surface of your dough should gradually get more and more smooth. You know you're done when the surface is smooth and the dough springs back when you give it a harsh poke. Remember, dough is tougher and springs back quicker than Chuck Norris or the most annoying character on any given TV show.

At this point you can decide on a few things. You can let it rise for a few hours, overnight or even 45 minutes. The longer and slower the rise, the more complex flavour you'll have at the end. The dough we made with Chef was left overnight in the fridge. On the other hand, the recipe I tried said to let it rest for 45 minutes. I ended up letting it rest for 2 hours and a half since I want some flavour. I wanted to let it rest for 3 hours but I got impatient.

After resting, your dough should be much more soft since the flour has had a chance to absorb the water. At this point, knock the gas out and you can take a kitchen scale to evenly divide the entire dough. If you don't have a scale, you can roughly guess the size of each bagel. I prefer a scale since I suck at estimating. If you like numbers like I do, Chef advised 120g/125g per bagel.

Roll them into balls and let them rest for about 5-10 minutes. After that, shape your bagels by rolling it out into a long snake. Wrap it around your hand and seal the bagel by rolling the two ends together. Make sure you have a relatively large hole; you don't want your bagels to close up!

Join the two ends together

Roll roll roll

Depending on how tacky your dough is, you may have an easier or harder time doing this. The 2nd batch wasn't very tacky so I definitively had some difficulty there. You'll get it though!

The ends didn't quite join as well as
I wanted them to. Taking note of this.

Protip: If your bagel is looking a little uneven or you're having some difficulty rolling an even log, you can do the pull-and-tug method. After you join the ends, hold your bagel like a steering wheel and gently tug the dough to even your bagel out.

For Montreal bagels, I've read that it's done in a syrup or a sugary solution. I'm not entirely sure of the ratio, though with Chef we did a 15% sugar solution and added a bit of molasses. For boiling you'll want a wide pot so you don't have to do these one at a time.

For my very first attempt at bagels I used my kitchen wok.

When your water is nice and hot (perhaps boiling depending on what recipe you're following), toss in however many bagels you can fit into your pot. If you're keeping your water at a certain temperature - but not boiling - be careful about your water temperature. If your heat isn't strong enough and you add too many bagels your water will get too cold for sufficient bagel cooking.

Before you put your bagels in, you should have some things ready:

1. A stopwatch at hand
2. Your garnishes in bowls/plates.
3. Either a wire rack to place your bagels...
4. ... or a pan so you can pop them into the oven. Make sure to use a silicon mat or parchment paper so your bagels aren't glued to the pan.

When you put your bagels in the water, they may or may not sink. Whatever happens, your bagels should definitively float within 15 seconds. If they don't, it means they didn't proof long enough. When you toss your bagels in the water, start your timer so you know how long they've been boiling for. Generally speaking they should boil between 1-2 minutes. If they're really big, like 140g/150g, you may consider 2/3 minutes instead. Flip them at the halfway mark and leave them alone until it's time to pull them out.

Protip: If you're afraid your bagels are underproofed, take a smaller pot of cold water and test a bagel by tossing it in. If it floats, they're ready to boil; if it doesn't, dry it off and leave them alone for another 30 minutes.

Protip: To take them out you can either use a slotted spoon or the handle of a wood spoon. I took mine out with a spatula and an icing spatula since I had them out anyway.

As soon as you take your bagel out of the water, give it a quick shake and toss them in your garnishes. In Montreal the most popular garnishes are poppy seeds (my favourite) and sesame. Then put them on your wire rack/tray. Rinse and repeat until your rack/tray is full. While they may expand a bit in the oven, whatever shape they have after the boiling process is their final shape.

Depending on whether you did a dip method or a boiling method will determine the oven temperature. The dip method doesn't cook the bagels so you'll have to set your oven at a lower temperature (try 375˚F). If you boiled them, they're cooked so the oven is going to give them colour. That means you can set your oven at a higher temperature; I set the oven to 450˚F for my 2nd batch. When the tray is full, pop them in the oven and watch them brown.

Protip: Your bagels might expand a little if you boiled them or a lot if you dipped them. Give them some breathing room and don't crowd them!

The 1st set took about 15-20 minutes to cook through. The second took 5-10 minutes to brown. When they look delicious, take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.

Final thoughts

Let's take a look at my bagel attempts.

First attempt ever

My very first attempt was on my own before I decided to go to pastry school. Long story short, it was a major dud. While they came out fantastic looking, they were more like dinner rolls than bagels. I was pretty disappointed.

Bagels with chef

My second attempt was with Chef. I liked how the dough was more tacky and it was easier to join the ends together. The texture was nice and it was a good bagel, however it didn't taste anything like my childhood bagels. I was left pretty unsatisfied and more determined than ever to replicate them.

Today's attempt

Today's attempt was the most successful thus far. I remembered how my family said that the baker used honey in his recipe, so I brought my bread flour and a jar of honey to school to experiment. I found a recipe online that was based on the St. Viateur bagels and I tweaked the recipe in a few ways. I put a bit of honey in the bagels; let them rise for 2.5 hours, boiled them in a honey solution and baked it at 450˚F.

While it's impossible to replicate the hint of charcoal without a barbecue or a wood oven, this is probably the closest I'll get. I got my family to try and they all agreed this was very close, if not spot on, to the bagels we bought. My mom even joked that I could make a big batch to freeze and my parents could bring it with them on holiday so they could get their bagel fix.

This poor bagel got detached... which
meant it was the first to die be eaten.

Did I replicate my childhood bagels? Not quite, but I think it's 95% there and I know what's the missing component. Am I pleased with the overall result? You bet I am.

All I can say is you won't see me buying bagels again.