I must be out of my mind to try to make homemade bagels. I received this book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter for Christmas, which is all about balancing the hassle and health benefits of making stuff from scratch versus buying it. It's full of recipes that I had never considering making at home before.
Anyway, my first experiment was with bagels. The writer calls the hassle "moderate", but I'd classify it more as "a pain in the ass". The dough was sticky and difficult to coax into the proper shape, and I had to keep spraying my hands with olive oil to manage it.
The recipe also called for two ingredients I'd never used before: yeast and barley malt. Okay, technically I have used yeast before, but it wasn't at all successful. The barley malt was used in the water to boil the bagels in before baking. What a weird process, I never realized that bagels required boiling and I have no clue what the barley malt does.
On an interesting side note, David did know that bagels require a boiling water bath. It astounds me that he knew this. Like it astounds me when my mom starts rattling off math equations or Sue talks about leaf spring design.
Anyway, the payoff was worth it - the bagels are yummy. I'm going to have to be pretty motivated to try that recipe again, though. The whole process takes about two and a half hours, which means that I'd have to get up before dawn to be ready for breakfast or serve them for a brunch.
They look fabulous! Did you tell me about that book before? I have heard of it, and I cant remember if it is from you. Any other goodies in it?
ReplyDeleteI probably told you about the book before. I've been looking forward to it since I heard about it on NPR over the summer. She has a lot of cool recipes that I'm definitely going to try. Like Camembert, yogurt, creme fraiche, and vanilla extract. I'll let you know how they work!
ReplyDeleteThe book also has the stories of her food experiments, like raising chickens and goats. It's fun to read. She has a blog www.tipsybaker.com if you're interested.