To Bagel or not to Bagel

Claudia Roden, whose book has a wonderful history of the bagel- South Germany to the Polish shtetl, and onto pushcarts on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the first waves of emigration to America, says ‘a bagel is a doughnut with rigor mortis.’ The bagels I made last night had certainly, to quote Withnail, ‘drifted into the arena of the unwell.’

Claudia’s research suggests the addition of an egg to the standard flour, yeast, oil recipe. I made a vegan (standard) and non-vegan egg version to satisfy the hungry household. I haven’t quite pinpointed what went wrong. I suspect it’s a combination of not kneading enough, never being very good at judging the difference between 5 and 7 inches (before you squeeze the ends of the bagel ‘rope’ together into its bracelet shape Claudia says the rope should be 7 inches long), and not leaving them for long enough once shaped to double in size. Or it could be any manner of other incompetence along the way.

Once shaped you should leave them for an hour, and then you pop them into a pot of medium bubbling water for 1-2 minutes. You watch as they rise and then turn them over once to boil for a few more seconds.

I watched and watched as mine stuck resolutely to the bottom, willing them to rise, even timing them with a stopwatch as an incentive to race each other to the top. They eventually made it to the surface, I put them onto a tea towel to dry and they went into the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

When the vegan ones came out of the oven and had cooled, Amy sniffed hers and said, “I’m not sure why I’m sniffing it,” I said, “I know why you are, it’s because it smells doughy.” Never a good sign. She took a bite and said “it’s not something I’d choose to put in my mouth.” Also not good. The ones which included egg and which I brushed with egg white before baking were slightly better. Although there was a bad moment where I was over-enthusiastic with the brushing and tipped the whole egg white into the baking tray. Slime and hard too small bagels…nom nom indeed.

I think the best way to sum up the reception to my bagels is this: We are planning a household marathon watching of Lord of the Rings, complete with ring shaped food. When I spun one of the fresh baked bagels on my finger and said “I can make more of these,’ there was a universal, “No no!! We want ring shaped food.” I’m sure they meant that mine qualified as neither ring-shaped, nor food. It’s a no to more bagels.

In short then, to bagel or not to bagel is a question I’ve now answered. I’m not going to rush to be making these again, and will leave it to those who, as Lee said (see my post Beginnings) have a long and professional history of bagel baking. But even in the hands of an amateur dough handler, I think they’re really quite simple. Just not for this dough-brain.

Brick Lane Beigel Bake has recently revealed its recipe.

p.s. don’t be fooled by the photograph, Stephanie is some kind of magician.