I hit the bagel jackpot this weekend, thanks to a make-your-own-bagel party where I was up to my eyeballs in the dough with a hole.
Harlem blogger extraordinare
Joe Schumacher hosted the event where some friends gathered for a bagel-making lesson that provided a fascinating crash-course on the ins and outs of proper bagel-making.
The ground rules were simple: avoid making the above bagel. At first glance this bagel might appear harmless, but according to Joe this H&H bagel is too "chewy and doughy and fluffy." Personally, I'm happy with any fresh bagel that makes an appearance in Harlem, but when I'm in Joe's house, I'm playing by Joe's rules. He says that Absolute Bagels and Murray's bagels are the best in the City, by the way.
When we arrived, Joe had already prepared the dough which consisted of pretty much what you would expect: flour, salt, water and yeast. But we learned that if we added gluton, the bagel would come out less chewy and if we put in some barley malt we'd get a nice brown-colored bagel when it comes out of the oven. Done and done.
So after getting a couple mimosas on and discovering that my camera was out of juice (apologies for the camera phone pics) , we separated the dough into balls and rolled out the dough with our hands.
Then we created a doughnut-shape out of the dough and put it on the cookie sheet.
Now, here's where it got exciting....
Instead of putting the bagel right into the oven, we boiled that bagel for a good 60 seconds. This does two things: It gives the bagel a crusty exterior and it stops the dough from rising. The trick is really in the boil. If you don't boil the bagel, you're going to end up with a dinner roll.
After the boil, we spread the bagels back on the baking sheet. We added cornmeal to the sheet to avoid bagel stickage. At this point Joe provided us with salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds etc. to customize our bagel as we saw fit. Then we cooked the bagels for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees. That's it!
So yummy.
Joe put out quite the spread with various types of cream cheese and lox, salads, fruits and cheeses and we had homeade apple pie with homeade pumpkin pie ice cream for dessert. The takeaway on all this is that Joe must stop whatever it is he's doing at this very moment and get going on a bagel shop here. Time's a wastin' and there's plenty o' bagel to be a risin' in Harlem.
