BBA: Bagels and Cranberry Bagels

I was supposed to post these bagels on Monday. I made them last Tuesday and Wednesday so that I'd be ready; however, you know what happens to the best of intentions, right? One of my nearest and dearest friends from college, Ceci, came to visit me this past weekend, and we really had the best time. Blogging was the last thing on my mind as we romped to and fro all over Washington, DC.

The rest of the kids in the slower-paced BBA Challenge group made these bagels the Sunday that I was finishing up the drive from Texas to DC. They tweeted their way through bagels and had a great time doing it. I, however, am Twitter challenged and I still haven't managed to make Twittering while baking a habit so I tend to miss out on some very helpful hints. Side note: Ceci Twittered the whole entire time we were romping about DC on her cell phone. My interest is definitely peaked.

I'll admit, I was only sort of excited about making the bagels. For starters, I checked at least 5 grocery stores for the ever-elusive malt powder to no avail. I ended up ordering some -- it will be here next week. The other issue was that I like bagels, but I don't love bagels. Sacrilege, I know. If I'm going to eat a bagel though, it absolutely must be a tasty one -- no grocery store bagels for me! But, I grew up in Texas so bagels just aren't such a big deal for me. I was pondering toppings and I knew that I didn't want to make only plain bagels, but a cinnamon raisin bagel doesn't flip my skirt up, and then I remembered that I really like the cranberry bagels that Einstein's makes. That settled it, half plain, half cranberry, and I was ready to go.

OK, the first issue that I had was that I knew that I'd be kneading these by hand. Peter Reinhart states clearly that bagel dough needs to be very, very stiff and I knew that my Kitchen Aid was going to have some issues with this dough. So, kneeding by hand . . . hmmmm. I mean, I can do it. Sheesh, I used to help my great grandmother do it when I was a little girl. But, do I want to do it? Not really. This is a really stiff dough and as I was kneeding I recalled that bakers (at least the old fashioned, artisan types) have large forearms. I do not have large forarms. It took me forever to kneed this dough. It actually took me close to an hour to get it to pass the windowpane test and get the cranberries kneaded in. During my hour of intense labor, I remembered that my grandparents' beachhouse neighbor for at least the past 20 years owns a bagel shop in Houston called New York Bagels. We affectionately call him "Ed, the Bagelman" and he is the real deal, Holyfield. He's from NYC (and has the accent to prove it), and he came to Houston forever ago to open his bagel shop. He wholesales the NY Style bagels to different locations all over Houston. Why, why, why?! did I not call him to ask him the secret to making bagels? Why, why, why?! didn't I get some special flour and malt from him while I was in Houston? And then I thought: I can be sure that Ed, the bagelman, is not kneading his bagel dough by hand every morning, but I'll have to check out his forearms the next time I see him, just the same. But, next time I'm in Houston, I'm going to arrange a serious field trip and tutorial from Ed, the bagelman.

I finally got the dough to windowpane and the rest of the bagel making process went off without a hitch. I used the poke method to make the bagels -- I now know that this results in flatter bagels. Peter Reinhart illustrates the two methods, poking and roping, in the book. I honestly thought to myself: why on earth would anyone use the rope method when it's so easy to poke? Well, if you want a nice, fat bagel then the rope method is apparently the trick. The bagels rest overnight and the next morning I was up bright and early to get these babies going so that I could have one for breakfast. I got the water boiling and I put the first batch in, and I looked, and I thought: I'm sure I forgot something here. Yup, baking soda. So, I took my bagels out, added the baking soda to the water, and resumed making bagels. I think that boiling them had to be my favorite part. The bagels boil, and then they go into a very hot, 500 degrees hot, oven to finish cooking.
So, were my bagels worth the effort? Absolutely. I know that I can buy good bagels, but it's pretty darn fun to make them, and they were so insanely good fresh from the oven. I've had mine in the freezer, but each morning I pull one out and toast it and it's absolutely delicious all over again!

To make the cranberry bagels, I simply waited until the dough was almost to the windowpane stage and then I began kneading in the cranberries. I used Craisins, not fresh cranberries, because I thought that the theory would be sort of similar to the cinnamon raisin bagel -- without the cinnamon. It was hard to knead in whole cranberries, so I finely chopped about 3/4 of the Craisins in the food processor before attempting to knead them in. While my cranberry bagels didn't get nearly as swirly pink as the cranberry bagels from Einsteins, they were really tasty. A word of caution, the addition of the Craisins makes the dough stickier. Peter Reinhart states clearly that the dough should not be tacky, so this gave me fits. However, the cranberry bagel dough handled the same way that the plain dough did, and both batches of bagels came out with a similar texture density.