Toaster Oven Part III: Beijing Bagels

Posted on April 27, 2011 by the ladies

Just when you thought I was done waxing poetic about the joyous versatility of a toaster oven, we embarked on a bagel adventure. Probably due to the sudden at-home bagel craze evident throughout the blogosphere, a number of our Beijing friends have recently been pumping out these boiled-then-baked-then-toasted brunch staples at home. We were inspired. We wanted to make our own, schmear on an ungodly amount of cream cheese, and stuff ourselves into an enjoyable Sunday carb coma. I was drawn in by the short baking time (10ish minutes) that seemed so very doable in our toaster ovens, and Christine was enraptured with the aesthetic possibilities of decoration (she was salivating over the visuals of pink Himalayan salt and black sesame).

There's little point in writing down a recipe here, as this post is intended to be a photo essay of bagelry. We each made a batch of dough from a mish-mash of the recipes below: Christine from instant yeast, as per the recipe, and me, from my sourdough starter, because hey, why not. Here are a list of quality bagel recipes. Overall, the ease of making bagels caused much joy and hand-clapping in our tiny kitchens and appreciative hugs for our toasters.

Michael Rulman (which uses starter)
Peter Reinhart (courtesy of The Wednesday Chef)
Serious Eats (which we love in general, for being so anal)

Lessons learned:
- Overnight proofing is best, but no big deal, as it only takes a few minutes to pull the dough together the night before – even if you're quite drunk and don't have a big mixer to help you.
- Bread flour or all-purpose are both fine, we used different flours, and both came out great.
- These are small bagels, and keep them that way (or go even smaller), cause you get a bigger crust to squidgy inside ratio.
- Definitely use parchment paper or oil the pan – these babies STICK!

1. Mixing molasses into the batter. No need for malt syrup, and note to Beijingers, molasses is now available here. Amazing.

2. The sponge is gooey, but the molasses smells great.

buy cialis online safely

4.jpg”>

3. Working the dough the morning of baking. The texture is of marshmallows and was kneading it was the best part of bagelry, except for decorating. Or making cute little circles. Or spazzing over boiling times.

4. The dough itself is actually quite stiff. Knead away! It becomes more elastic with some effort.

5. Bagel logs. Not so tasty looking.

6. Bagel logs rolled into bagel circles. They are also none too attractive, but just wait.

7. Second proofing, waiting for the dough to rise a bit more before boiling. Only about 15 minutes, which is the perfect time to have your first Bloody Mary of the day.

8. Boiling. The first step to cooking. Come to think of it, this is also not very attractive. Don't overcrowd your pan, and from experience, this is a 3-person job. You need a timer, a flipper, and a dropper. Or, you could just use one really coordinated person (none were present this Sunday).

9. Our everything bagel toppings, and pretty pink salt.

10. Mushing the toppings onto the boiled bagels. An egg wash is key to making the goodies stick.

11. Voila! A mere 10-15 minutes later (it's a toaster oven, it took us 15, though recipes said 10ish) and we have bagel magic!

zp8497586rq
This entry was posted in COOK and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.