Homemade Bagels, à la Jo Goldenberg Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why do you have to use baking soda to boil bagels? ›

Baking soda makes the water more alkaline, giving the bagels a pretzel-like quality that contributes to their chewiness. Just one teaspoon helps the bagels develop a shiny, dark-brown exterior as they bake.

Making Homemade Bagels is cheaper than buying them. Although going to a bagel shop makes for a delicious meal, it gets expensive quick. That's why we love making them at home. This recipe gives you all the things you want in a bagel.

The Poaching Liquid

I boil them in a mix of maple syrup, baking soda, salt, and water to give them a light golden brown color, a crave-worthy chewy exterior, and a nice shiny finish.

Bagels deflate when they're overproofed.

The boiling process gelatinizes the starches on the surface, creating a glossy, crackly crust during baking. Additionally, boiling gives the bagel its characteristic dense interior while maintaining a tender crumb. Baking: Once they're boiled, bagels are transferred to the oven for baking.

Add honey and baking soda to boiling water in a large pot. This will help give the bagels a nice sheen and golden brown color when out of the oven. Add a few bagels at a time to the pot, making sure they're not crowded. They should float immediately when added to the water.

a regular bagel is the water you boil them in. Much like a specific vineyard terroir is used to make a wine, certain minerals in New York City tap water are attributed to creating the best bagels. These include low concentrations of calcium and magnesium and a high level of sediment.

Bagels and lox is one of the best Jewish deli favorites and usually consists of an open-faced or ring-shaped bread piece known as a bagel that is topped with thinly sliced red onions, cream cheese, briny capers, and lox. A lox bagel is typically eaten for breakfast and includes both a bagel and lox.

What you're trying to do, by boiling or steaming bagels before baking, is to kill the yeast, so the bagels won't rise in the oven and become puffy, rather than staying rather dense and chewy. You're also adding a very thin coating of sugar—malt, in this case—which gives bagels their distinctive shiny crust. Eureka!

What happens if you let bagels rise too long? ›

5) When it comes to boiling, the gentler the better

(This is another reason to let them rise a few minutes less — they're easier to pick up and put in the water, while over-proofed bagels will be more delicate.)

Get a thermometer for sure! That way, you can just poke it right in without needing to cut it! If it reads 190 degrees F then it's done!

When you are out of baking soda, you could use an alternative like baking powder or egg whites to produce a similar flavor and texture in your product.

One of the most important steps in making bagels. is boiling before baking. Baking the dough right away gives a bagel with a matte. finish and an open interior structure. Boiling the bagel pre gelatinizes the crust.

The Power of Baking Soda

Examples of alkali metals include sodium, potassium, and more. When you combine alkaline compounds such as baking soda with an acid, they produce carbon dioxide bubbles which helps cooking batter to rise.

Sometimes lye (sodium hydroxide) is added to raise the pH of the crust, which promotes browning and caramelization during the bake (this is identical to how pretzels are given their signature flavor and appearance, though in the case of bagels the concentration of lye used is much lower).