Cinnamon Raisin Bagels!

This was an interesting project…. we’ve made all sorts of breads and desserts… but never bagels before…. this gave our mixer a workout.. to the point where the auto-shutoff feature kicked in… so, if you don’t have a professional grade mixer, you might need to do some kneading by hand on this one….I looked into tons of different bagel recipes… but this is the one I ended up using: http://annies-eats.net/2009/06/11/cinnamon-raisin-bagels/

You have to start this recipe off by making the “sponge” … this consists of : 1 TSP of Yeast, 4 Cups Bread flour, and 2-1/2 cups of 90-100 degree water.

 

You’ll beat the above ingredients together until they make a pancake looking batter.. Once you have the batter made, you cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place for about 2 hours.

Since the kitchen timer we have only does 1 hour at a time, I just grab a Sharpie and write the time it will be done resting on the plastic wrap.

Now it’s time to turn the “sponge” into dough. You’re going to add another 1/2 TSP of yeast, 3 Cups of flour, 1 TBSP Ground Roasted Saigon Cinnamon, 5 TBSP Sugar, 2-3/4 TSP Salt, and 1 TBSP Honey…

 

Get all of that mixed up… and you have to take a look at the consistency of your dough… My dough was looking a little dry… so, even though the recipe called for another 3/4 Cup of flour at this point… I left it out for now…

After you’ve got your dough pretty well mixed, hit the pause button on the mixer and measure out 2 cups of loose raisins…

Toss the raisins in a strainer, and rinse them well… you want to wash off the excess sugar on the skin of the raisins… and of course in doing so, they’re going to hold onto a bit of moisture from washing.. so if your dough is dry.. the little bit of water on the raisins will make it just fine… if your dough was a bit wet already… you’ll have to add some flour to get it back where it should be…Mix the raisins in, and knead the dough by machine for about 6 minutes, or by hand for 10… Then, break the dough into a bunch of bagel sized chunks, depending on the size of the bagels you want..

Work the dough balls until they’re nice and smooth, and make the hole in the center by pressing your thumbs through the center as you work the dough around in a circle.. the alternate method of doing this is to roll each ball out into a log, then turn the log into a circle by sticking the 2 ends together…but.. it’s just easier to push your thumbs through the center and work it into a nice circle.

Once you have the bagels shaped, put the on a greased and floured baking sheet and put them in a warm spot for about 40 minutes to an hour… then, they all go into the fridge overnight.

In the morning, get a pot of water boiling with 1 TBSP of Baking Soda in it.. and preheat the oven to 500 degrees…

Once the water is boiling, pull the bagels out of the fridge and put as many in the boiling water as will fit at once… I could only fit 2 at a time… but, I made some pretty big bagels…

You’ll boil the bagels on each side for about a minute and a half – two minutes… depending on how thick of a skin you like on your bagels….

Then, place the boiled bagels back onto a greased baking sheet.

The baking part s pretty cut and dry… put them in the oven at 500 degrees for 5 minutes on the middle rack, rotate the baking sheet 180 degrees after 4 minutes, drop the temperature to 450, and cook for another 5 minutes… You want the bagels browned, but they don’t have to be completely done… you can always finish them off in the toaster…  but, they should make a hollow **thump** sound when you rap on them with your finger / toothpick should come out clean, etc.

After coming out of the oven, let the bagels relax on a cooling rack for at least 10 minutes before slicing them open…. then… slice them, pop them in the toaster… put some butter on them and enjoy.

This recipe made about 9 bagels for me.. but.. as I said.. I made BIG bagels…

Cooking times will vary depending on the size of your bagels, so adjust as needed… if you make mini bagels, 10 minutes in the oven will give you nice cinnamon raisin hockey pucks… if for some unknown reason, you make bagels bigger than I did… 10 minutes will give you uncooked doughy centers… so… adjust as needed.

I like this recipe… I did about 1 minute on each side when boiling them… I think that was a little too short… I think next time, I’ll take it up to 2 minutes on each side… and I might make them a bit smaller so I can get a dozen bagels out of a batch.