Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Bagel Success!

Ok... this was a bad thing... learning to make my own bagels that is.

This morning I mixed my starter with the rest of the dough ingredients and let it rise while I was out doing chores. I returned to a doubled dough which I divided into 12 balls, poked a hole in the centers, boiled for 2-3 minutes then baked for 20 minutes more. Yummy! They are the BEST bagels I have ever had. They have a great crunch to the crust and are wonderfully dense and chewy on the inside. It is not good for a bagel lover to be able to make them on demand!

I cooked them in two batches. The first batch are the lighter colored ones in the photo. I decided I wanted them a bit darker for the second batch. Still both had a great crunch to them.
Don't they just look delicious?

4 comments:

Barb said...

They sure do look delicious! I am just learning how to bake bread. I am doing it the "no knead" way. Have you done that before?
Barb

Diana said...

Hi Barb,

I haven't yet tried the whole "no knead" bread craze yet... although I have downloaded a few recipes for it. It use either my bread machine or my Kitchen Aide mixer to mix and knead my doughs. I very rarely knead by hand anymore. This bagel recipe actualy says it is hard to knead this dough by hand and one should use a machine to do it for you. If you have a machine I recommend you try it. It was way less intimidating then I thought it was going to be and they were so good!

I just jumped over to your blog for the first time. Your new barn/home is just beautiful! How long before you are there full time? Do you plan on any animals? I look forward to following your story!

Thanks for stopping in!
Diana

Barb said...

Thanks for the baking tips!
We had hoped to be there by this spring, but the economy so bad right now as far as home prices, we are now hoping for next year. We would want to sell our townhome & the shop building before we make the big move. We are actually busy at our wood shop which is very unusual in our area. Most everyone else is slow.
I am learning to be patient..when we are there it is really, really hard to come home to IL. Thanks for following the blog.
Barb

Diana said...

I understand about not wanting to leave when you are there... for nine months we also did the "live in another state and get to the farm only on weekends" thing. There was more then once when we played hookie and stayed through Monday as well. :)