Spinach Bagels

I love the bagel shop back home.  It's a small mom and pop place, and it was there as a child that I was introduced to "bagels besides plain and blueberry."

Spinach bagels.  

One of the last times I was home, I neglected to bring any back with me, so I sulked until I found a recipe, and I made it.  I went to make them again today, but the recipe I used is goooone!  Luckily, Google works, and I found a recipe for bagels to adapt here.

I tend to consider recipes to be "cooking guides," rather than set in stone.  This is not always good when it comes to baking, because chemistry.  My tweaks worked, though, so I present to you Jenna's Spinach Bagels:

Steps one and two will always be the same.  Just remember them.

Step one: Clean your surfaces so internet strangers don’t judge you.

Step two: if it’s anywhere near beer o’clock, put on your AmyD beer apron.  If it’s not beer o’clock, you can still put things in the beer pouch...such as a Bloody Mary or a bottle of water.  Probably.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YEAST.  

I have been known to start cooking without confirming I have all of my ingredients. Like, I thought that I had a can of kidney beans, but they were really black beans. Generally, it's no big deal. Unless that thing is yeast (or baking soda or baking powder). If I'm baking, and I need yeast, I find that first, because if I go down the ingredients and just add things as I see them listed, being out of yeast ruins whatever I was planning to do, plus the ingredients I've already mixed.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups (600g) flour.  I used whole wheat.  The original recipe calls for bread flour.  I almost always use whole wheat flour, but all-purpose flour works fine.  Whole wheat will make for a denser bagel.
• 1 T (12g) sugar
• 1 T (15ml) oil.  I used olive oil, but vegetable oil works.  If you're making a sweet bagel, I would advise against olive oil.  Use vegetable oil instead.
• ½  T (9g) salt
• 2 t (7g) active dry yeast.  If you're using instant yeast, there is no need to dissolve it first.
• ¼-½  C (I used 32 g) chopped, wilted spinach or thawed, frozen spinach.  Make sure to squeeze all the water out.

**You can omit the spinach and just make plain bagels.  This amount of spinach doesn't affect the chemistry of the dough.  You can also add whatever you want at this point.  I'd make sure to keep it between ¼-½ C of add-ins. I am going to try cinnamon chips next time. Dried fruit would be amazing, as would adding some chopped sundried tomatoes.

• 1¼-1½ (300-350ml) warm water
• Corn meal (no big deal if you don't have this. It's to dust the pan.)

Mix together dry ingredients and oil. Slowly add the water, mixing spinach in as well. You can mix with your hands, or use a stand mixer with a dough hook. Use as much of the water as you need until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Dough is too stiff? Add a bit more water. Mix until dough is smooth and easily forms a ball. I read to knead it for ten minutes. I don't think I kneaded it long enough, but this is what "ball stage" looked like using my mixer.

Take your dough ball, and divide it into eight equal portions. I made each of mine into little mini-balls. Rest the dough for between ten to twenty minutes.

When it comes to resting/rising, you will have the most success in a room that's, well, room temperature. I forget how cold it is in my kitchen, so my stuff doesn't always rise the way it should. If I think of it, I'll set the oven to "warm" for a bit, and then let my dough rise in an open, warm oven.

Once the first resting period is over, it's time to make these bagel-shaped. I have seen several recipes (including the linked one) that have you roll your dough out into a snake and then connect the edges. I do it differently. I squashed my dough balls down a bit to form a fat disc. Then, I poked my finger into the center of each disc to form a hole, and waved my finger around so the dough was like a hula hoop. That is a technical term, yes.

Once you've completed this step, you can freeze your once-rested, shaped bagel dough.  I wrapped two bagels in wax paper and into a freezer bag.  I've not done this before, but I understand that when you want to eat these frozen bagels, defrost, boil, and bake.  I'll let you know how this works.

Rest these bagels again.  Twenty minutes this time.  And while they're resting, fill a stockpot with water and bring it to a boil.  

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees (220C).

Your bagels should have risen a bit more, and become a bit puffy.  MINE DIDN'T BECAUSE OF THE KITCHEN TEMPERATURE.  THIS IS COOL WITH ME, BUT COULD SEEM TOO DENSE FOR OTHER PEOPLE!

Boil two bagels at a time.  Drop the bagels into the water, let boil for a minute, and then flip them and boil another minute.  The bagels should rise to the top of the water.

Remove from the water, and drain for a second or two.  

Now.  You can get crazy.  Do you want these bagels to have tasty crunchy things baked onto the top?  Pour that tasty crunchy thing onto a plate, and gently press your bagel onto said thing.  I topped mine with Parmesan cheese.  Depending on what you added (or didn't!) add to your dough, some options might be poppy seeds, caraway seeds, sesame seeds, granulated sugar, or dried onions.  Basically any delicious thing you would like on top of your bagel.  I've seen people recommend an egg wash at this point, both to give the outside of the bagel a shiny and browned appearance, and also to have your food confetti stick.  I don't use egg wash.  The wet bagel grabs things just fine.

Place the bagel onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet with corn meal sprinkled on it.  If you don't have corn meal, that's fine.  A light coating of oil will work nicely.

Bake for 20 minutes. (HOW LONG IS THAT IN THE METRIC SYSTEM?)  The recipe I adapted from says to flip after ten minutes, but because I topped mine, I just left them as is.  They still cooked evenly.

Remove bagels from oven and allow them to cool for--LOL JK PUT THEM IN YOUR EATING HOLE.

These were denser than the last batch I made.  Partly because I only used whole wheat flour this time, and I'd combined whole wheat and unbleached all-purpose flour last time.  Also because my kitchen was pretty cool, and that affects the rising, which in turn affects the density.  They were still very delicious.