Bagels with Pate Fermentee (25)
14 hours later, (yes, I said 14) I did a small departure from the prescribed baking method. The recipe instructs you to throw all the ingredients (including the pate fermente) into a mixing bowl at once. Mix on low for three minutes, medium for five. Instead, I measured all the dry ingredients together in the mixing bowl first, and used a few pulses to combine. Then I slowly drizzled in the wet ingredients, and the pate fermente. I let the mixer run on medium for eight minutes. The result was a pretty firm dough. Not like a rock, but pretty firm. I placed the dough into a greased rising bin, threw on the lid, and left it alone for an entire two hours.
At the end of the first rise, I weighed the entire dough, and then divided that into 12 equal pieces by weight. Each piece was rolled into a "blunt cylinder," aka fat play-dough snake without the pointy ends. I had a run in with my old nemesis, plastic wrap, but managed to eventually get off a big enough piece to spray with Pam and cover the snakes, I mean cylinders, for a 20 minute rest.
Meanwhile, I put parchment AND cornmeal on a baking pan. When it comes to baking, I'm a belt and suspenders kind of gal. You don't want these things to stick after all that work. (Important note: the first time I made this, I placed all 12 bagels on one sheet pan. When they rose, they stuck together at the sides and were murder to try and get apart, which caused the air to puff out. Flat bagels are no good people. Use two pans and keep 'em separated.) I followed their shaping directions and had little problem. However, future me should have told past me to carefully secure those ends together! A few of them came apart during boiling. I placed them on the prepared pan, went another round with the plastic wrap, covered them, and put the pan in the fridge for two hours. This is a real labor of love. So. much. waiting.
When the time was up, I preheated the oven to 500. Including my baking steel. I also busted out my old cast iron skillet and filled it 3/4 of the way with water, measuring as I went. It took about 8 cups. The recipe says to add 1 tsp of malt syrup (like anyone has that on hand) or honey per cup of water. That meant I needed 8 tsp of honey. 3 tsp=1 Tbs, so 8 tsp=2 2/3 Tbs. I didn't measure that 2/3. I eyeballed it. I stirred the water until the honey was dissolved.
When the water started to boil, I quickly discovered that the easiest way to get the bagels into the water was to cut around the parchment paper they were resting on, and then flip the bagel from the parchment piece directly into the water. This meant my water had lots of cornmeal floaties. But it also meant I had minimal handling of the bagels, and they kept their shape and rise. I could also get three into the water within seconds of each other (having pre-cut all the papers). I boiled the dough bagels for one minute, flipped using a wooden skewer, boiled for one additional minute and extracted with a spider spatula to a cooling wrack. This is when things started to go crazy. It was all about time management. Once the first three bagels were boiled, I immediately put in the next three and set the timer. That gave me one minute to dip the boiled bagels into the topping of my choice. Word to the wise... dipping them into "everything bagel mixes" was the worst. The poppyseeds and salt sunk to the bottom of the bowl. My advice: just sprinkle it on. It's faster, easier and, again, involves less handling.
After I had six boiled, topped, and ready to go, I threw them into the preheated oven. I will not regale you with the trials that ensued, as I tried to bake them on the steel to get a really crisp bottom. Suffice it to say, the steel is too hot, and burns the bottoms of the bagels if you cook them on there for more than three minutes. So save yourself the sorrow and just pop them onto a parchment lined pan to start with. They get plenty crispy. Meanwhile, I'm still boiling and topping the other bagels. When the second six are boiled and topped, they are also placed on a pan and are put into the oven. You need two timers running for this technique. It took each sheet about 15 minutes to get to the brown I wanted.
We gave them five minutes to cool before eating. We probably should have given them longer. because they were HOT. But oh man, were they heavenly. I've never had a warm, fresh, bagel in my life and it was worth all the work. They were chewy on the outside, while soft and dense on the inside. My husband may or may not have eaten three before they fully cooled.
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