Zoe Strickland | Editor-in-Chief

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar

1 ¼ cups warm water

3 ½ cups flour (you can use bread flour, but regular flour is more useful to keep around)

1 ½ teaspoons salt

Any toppings you desire — I recommend Everything but the Bagel seasoning from Trader Joe’s

Extra flour for creating a non-stick counter surface

Adapted from sophisticatedgourmet.com

Directions:

This recipe takes around two hours, so it isn’t for those with scarce time but these bagels are pretty great, once prepared.

In a bowl with ½ cup of the warm water, add in the sugar and yeast — but don’t mix it. Let it sit for about five minutes, or until the mixture has become frothy.

In a separate large bowl, mix the flour and salt together. After it’s mixed, pour in the yeast mixture and the rest of the warm water. Combine into a rough dough.

Once combined, place the dough on a floured countertop and begin kneading it with your hands. After about 10 minutes, the dough should be able to form a smooth and firm ball.

Put the dough ball in a lightly oiled bowl and cover it with a damp towel for an hour. The dough should double in size. Once doubled, punch the dough down and let rest for around ten minutes.

While the dough is resting, bring a pot of water to a boil. Take the dough and place it back onto a counter, dividing it into eight evenly-sized pieces — or 12 to 16 if you want to make mini-bagels.

Take each piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Some people prefer to form the balls by pressing and rolling the dough against a counter, others prefer to roll the dough in between their hands.

Once the dough balls are formed, use your finger to punch a hole in the center of the ball, spinning the bagel around your finger to make the hole larger.

After all of the bagels are formed, put groups of them in the boiling water, flipping them over after a minute. Once all of the bagels have been boiled, place your selected toppings on them and put them on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake them in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until the bagels are golden.

Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu

Photo by: Zoë Strickland