Down the Bagel Hole

I live my life like I make my bagels

You know what I hate? Food writers who insist on telling you some long-winded story before giving you the recipe. I’m doing it differently. Here’s a pic, followed by my bagel recipe, followed by a whole bunch of pics, and then my own dive down the bagel hole (the best part).

Just about to come out of the oven, my pepper cheddar sourdough bagels

Tom’s Sourdough Bagel

Derived from Maurizio Leo’s Sourdough Bagel recipe¹

Yield: 12 Bagels

Ingredients:

Levain:

• 120g high protein bread flour (I prefer Cairnspring Mills Trailblazer)

• 60g water

• 25g sourdough starter², ripe

Main Dough:

• 850g high protein bread flour

• 475g water, room temp

• 30g sugar

• 30g barley malt syrup

• 20g salt

• 7g diastatic malt powder

• Levain from above

Directions:

I typically do this as a 3-day recipe, meaning I start on the evening of Day 1 and finish on the morning of Day 3. You could easily start on the morning of Day 1 and bake 24 hours later.

Day 1:

Mix all the Levain ingredients in a container and leave it at a warm temperature for 8-12 hours.

Day 2:

Mix some (half? One quarter?) of the mixing water, sugar, barley malt syrup, diastatic malt powder, and salt in a small bowl. To your stand mixer's mixing bowl, add the malt syrup slurry, flour, remaining water, and ripe levain—now is also the time to add any extras like cheese or peppers or raisins into the mix. Mix on low speed for approximately 5 minutes until the dough strengthens and begins to smooth. Transfer your dough to a bulk fermentation container and cover.

Now, allow your dough to sit for approx. 3 hours, giving the dough a single fold halfway through this bulk fermentation.

Next, divide your into 12 equal pieces, and roll each of them into a tight ball, evenly round. Getting these round and tight really aids the final product, so pinch off and try to create a nice ball. Cover with a damp cloth and let sit for 15-30 minutes.

Grab each piece of dough, puncture a hole into the middle with your thumbs, then spin and smooth the dough in your hands to give it a bagel shape. Place the bagels on a piece of parchment paper on top of a baking sheet. You can either oil the parchment paper or sprinkle it with corn meal.

Cover the baking sheet with a large, reusable plastic bag and seal shut (I use two smaller trash bags). Let the dough proof at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours. The dough should puff up slightly after this time but not excessively. You want the dough to spring back lightly when you touch it.

Put it in the fridge overnight.

Day 3:

Now you’re ready to boil, top, bake, and eat.

Preheat your oven to 475°F. I like to bake on a baking steel, so I give it a good hour to heat up, but you can also arrange two racks in the central part of the oven.

Fill a wide pot with water and bring to a low boil; I often throw in a tablespoon of baking powder or some brown sugar or some molasses. Next to your stovetop, place a half baking sheet or towel with a cooling rack on top; you’ll use this to drain the wet bagels for just a minute before topping. Next, prepare your parchment paper (either on a sheet or on a peel) with a sprinkling of corn meal. Grab any toppings you'd like (poppy, oat, everything bagel mix, sesame, etc.) and place them in bowls on your work surface.

Once the water is at a low boil, drop several bagels into the boil for about 40-60 seconds per side (I get three bagels in my pot at a time). Using a spider strainer, transfer each piece to the rack to drain while you boil the next bagels. Then, transfer the boiled bagels to the parchment and top, if desired.

Bake at 475°F for 17-18 minutes, until the bagels are a rich golden brown. Let cool 15-20 minutes on a wire rack. Top and eat!

I slice and freeze any bagels I can’t eat that day.

Bagel Pics

Highlights from the latest batch.

This is my levain after sitting overnight; not pretty!

Cutting the peppers

I use a bench cutter to cut the bagels into roughly equal chunks …

… then I roll them into balls to sit for 30 minutes

This is assembly line, ready for action

Bagels boiling

The toppings are on

Ready to pull from the oven

The full batch (minus the one I ate)

Down the Bagel Hole!

I think these bagels are awesome. In fact, I think they’re the best bagels I’ve ever had.

But that’s a pretty subjective view, and taste in food (and most things) is pretty individual. What I think is a great bagel may not do much for you. So let me define “great bagels.” I like a bagel that has a crispy outside—that crackles a bit when you bite in. And I want a good chew to it—when I bite in, I want to have to tug a bit to get my bite. I don’t want a bagel all soft inside—I want some substance. (This is my taste in friends too!) So I’ve slowly tweaked to get this right where I want it. You should do the same! There is no right or wrong in this world, at least when it comes to bagels; there’s just what you like. Life is too short not to make the bagels you like.

You know, what you put on top of bagels is totally up to you. I like a good Everything Mix, but I also love Maldon salt and grated cheese. When I use dry toppings, I often make a cornstarch slurry (1/4 cup water, 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch, heat until it thickens, then paint it atop the bagels before putting on the toppings to help the toppings stick.) The bagels pictured here include Tillamook cheddar and fresh habanero and Thai chiles, right out of my garden.

I’ve implied that I make an 80/20 mix of flour, but here’s how it really goes: I weigh my Trailblazer flour first, and I throw it in the bowl until it weighs somewhere near 600g (which is to say, anywhere from 550 to 700) and then I top it up with whole wheat flour from there. It really doesn’t have to be that precise.

The idea for putting the recipe first came from my friend Jenn Wraspir. She and I agree that we hate having to wade through some long, windy story about how someone cooks something when what we really want to see is the recipe and maybe a picture. If I like the looks of the recipe, maybe I’ll read the blabbing (hopefully you’re still reading).

Jenn writes my favorite cooking blog ever. It’s my favorite in part because she has no tolerance for bullshit and she is not trying to please anyone but herself. What makes Jenn happy? Savory, belly-filling foods, and lots of chicken and beef. I have never been unhappy with one of her recipes and I’ve tried a bunch of them. (Jenn is also the best hire I ever made, but that’s another story.)

I’ve been making my own bagels for almost a decade now. My wife, Sara, used to make bagels for me but that stopped when she abandoned me … wait, sorry … took a job in Brazil and I suddenly realized that if I wanted bagels for breakfast, I better figure it out for myself FFS.

For a long time I made bagels using instant yeast, but then about two years ago I discovered the lovely voodoo that is sourdough and I’ve been making sourdough bagels every since. Here’s a link to my old bagel recipe and almost everything I say about how to make bagels—especially the just relax and have fun with it part—applies there as well.

I called it “lovely voodoo,” but let me be clear: baking with sourdough is just better. It’s like the difference between driving on a racetrack with track tires instead of street tires. It’s the difference between climbing a mountain on a clear day as opposed to in a fog bank. It’s like sex without a …

Well, listen, it’s better … if you’ve got time and attention for it. A good sourdough talks to you, it breathes, it insinuates, it strokes you on the shoulder and whispers, “I’m probably ready to bake now” … but you’ve got to give it time and you’ve got to be patient and you’ve got to be willing to listen and hey, I get it, you may be too busy for that. If you just want to make your darned bagels, use instant yeast. They’ll be perfectly fine.

Now, you may look at this recipe with its very precise measurements and think: this looks fussy. Well, I’m here to tell you, there’s not a single ingredient on here that I haven’t deviated from at one time or another. I’m not talking 25% deviation, but when it calls for 18 grams of salt, I’m usually between 18 and 20 (because I like salt), and if I accidentally go a little over, well, I just roll with it and see how it tastes. I’ve never screwed up a batch of bagels through minor imprecision, so just relax.

I’m always right in the ballpark with my key ingredients (flour, water, salt, sourdough starter) but when it comes to the other stuff, I’m all over the place. I’m in a constant state of experimentation with making the perfect Jalapeno Cheddar bagel, for example. I don’t insist on Jalapeno, often using Habanero or Thai chili peppers, and as for cheese, I’ve done Parmigiano Reggiano, Swiss, Dubliner, and good old Tillamook Sharp Cheddar. They’re all good. As for my bagel boil, I switch between brown sugar, molasses, and baking powder in the water, and the only difference I see is that the brown stuff makes the bagels a little browner. Big whoop!

I make bagels like I live my life: one experiment after another!

My point here is: relax, try stuff, have fun. You’re making these bagels for you and for your family and friends, so just take a chance on doing something interesting. (And, if you like rigid precision, do that!)

I’ll just say, I love the whole process and I’ve found something to enjoy every step of the way. I hope you’ll do the same.

1. If you’re a beginning baker, I urge you to go read his recipe and learn from all he has to offer. This recipe assumes a decent bit of experience and confidence with baking.

2. My sourdough guru is Maurizio Leo at The Perfect Loaf. You can’t go wrong by following his guidance.