Bagels

I never had a bagel until I was 22 and lived in London where the was a small coffee shop around the corner which made the best bagels I've ever tasted. Imediately with the first bite into the chewy crust I was hooked. Now, in Madrid they are hard to find unless you go to special shops, so I thought, "Why not try making them yourself?". Here's the recipe I found somewhere on the world wide web. All you need to add is just your own fillings, such as spread cheese, salmon, cucumber etc.

Ingredients:
420g flour
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
60 ml water
60 ml neutral oil
2 eggs
(1 small onion, fried)

Start by disolving the yeast in lukewarm water for a couple of minutes.

Make a small well in the flour and pour in the honey.

Pour in the yeast.

Add the oil.

And the eggs. Start mixing it from the centre and outwards with a fork until it all sticks together.

Put the dough on a flour-dusted table and knead the bread for a couple of minutes. You don't need to knead for too long. You will notice that the dough is also heavier and more compact than your normal bread dough. That's fine. Then I chose to split the dough in two.

I flatened one half and spread some fried onions on it, folded it over and kneaded the fried onions into the dough. I added a bit of extra flour for this as the oil from the onion made it more sticky.

Then I put the two doughs in plastic bags and left them to rise for about two hours at room temperature. The time may vary but they need to double in size.

When they had doubled, I pressed them down a bit to get rid of the air and left them to rise for another half hour.

Then without squeezing too much air out, I formed a sausage, cut it into about 12 chunks (6 of onion, six normal ones). I flatened them and punched a hole through them with a finger.

I then shaped them aroun my thumb.

And left them to rise a third time for 15 minutes. At this moment I put a big pot full of water on the cooker and brought it to a boil. In the water I added a bit of salt and some sugar. Also the time to turn on your oven at 190º

Then I boiled the the dough rings for about 2 minutes in batches so they didn't stick together. This stops the yeast from developing further and creates that chewy crust. As they are floating it's necessary to flip them over after about a minute.

Then they go on a rack for cooling off for a few minutes to let the water evaporate.

Then they go on a baking tray with paper and are brushed with egg whites. The regular ones I furthermore sprinkled with poppy seeds. And into the oven they go for about 20 minutes at 190º.

And the result speaks for itself.