I MUST learn to make a good bagel! I so so enjoy them, and maddening lack of availability here is not supportive! This first batch wasn't a total disaster, but definitely not yet the ideal product. Texture wasn't too bad-- fairly good crispy outside, soft-chewy inside.... but flavor was off for sure... I think this is for the major part due to that while I was planning to use "Ruch-mehl" here which is a decent protein-rich flour, more processed than a whole wheat one, but didn't have any and didn't feel like going to buy a few kilos on top of the few sacks of whole wheat flour I had. So these were 100% whole wheat bagles. Mind you that a "whole wheat" bagle when chosen as among the flavors in a bagle store is NOT 100% whole wheat... but a finer-ground flour and some rougher whole-wheat-grain flour mixed in. So overall they were very Dark bagles with a very whole-wheat flour taste, which is great on one side, but when aiming for one specific idealized USA-style bagel.... then not quite satisfying that craving.I already have some Ruchmehl ready and waiting, maybe for next weekend :) I still have 2 frozen from this batch to finish.
Oh! And second thing I found (not indicated in the recipe that I almost accurately followed with the biggest exception being the whole wheat flour), was that the toppings do not actually stick on all that well when just applied to the wet bagles straight out of the boiling water (these were boiled bagles, by the way, not steamed ones!) ... so next time I'll definitely have an egg-wash ready also so that when eating them, just barely touching the top of the bagle wouldn't send all the poppyseeds careening off! :)
Here's half-way through the process, forming the shapes before they finish 'poofing' overnight:
And here were the final results:
No comments:
Post a Comment