Roots and Grubs

Little tiny bagels

Posted by mamster on Thursday, January 26, 2006

I make my own bagels. Not very often, but as far as I know there’s only one place in Seattle that makes a decent bagel (Bagel Oasis), and it’s too far from my house.

The two problems with Seattle bagels, just like bagels everywhere (even New York), are size and steam. Most bagels are too big, which makes them less fun to eat, just like one giant potsticker would be lame compared to a plate of regular dumplings. And to cut corners, many bagel outfits steam their bagels instead of boiling, resulting in a bagel with lousy crust.

Luckily, homemade bagels are quite easy. You can make them in the evening, let them ferment overnight in the fridge, then boil and bake them in the morning. I made bagels a few days ago (Iris helped) from the Montreal bagel recipe in Alford and Duguid’s book Home Baking. It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the world’s best bagels come from Montreal; Hillel Cooperman discusses the greatness of Canadian bagels at Tastingmenu.com. He also gives his recipe, which looks pretty tasty.

In any case, when you make bagels at home, you can make them small, and you will boil them, and they will be good. We made ours really small (about an ounce each) and put sesame seeds on them. If you’re nervous about working with dough, know that bagels are made with very dry dough, which means it won’t stick to everything or burble away across the counter like ciabatta dough. Bagels also freeze well. I defrosted the remaining bagels this morning and somehow they were even better than the day I made them. Maybe I’m just getting my appetite back.

There are two weird ingredients you need for making bagels. Bagels are best made with high-gluten flour, the highest protein flour you can buy. And they contain malt, either in the form of malt powder or malt syrup. Malted milk powder will not work. Malt syrup (usually barley, sometimes wheat) can be found at most health food stores. Malt powder (sometimes labeled “diastatic” or “nondiastatic”—the difference is irrelevant for bagel making) and high-gluten flour are available from King Arthur. Their high-gluten flour is called Sir Lancelot. I reordered recently and our flour is still in its bag, which means somewhere around the house is a Rubbermaid container that says “Sir Lancelot” on it.

Do you have Sir Lancelot in a Rubbermaid container?