Not quite breakfast time

For my first post I only found it right for it to encompass two of my favourite food things:

1. Breakfast

2. Bread

Late this evening I came to the realisation that there was nothing in the house for us to eat for breakfast tomorrow. Oh no! After franticly flicking through my recipe book I came across an old favourite; bagels. Deliciously chewy on the outside, and soft and fluffy inside their shiny crust. Very simple and quick to make, perfect!

The finished product:

The recipe:

I searched far and wide for the perfect bagel recipe, with memories of ones purchased from the bakery back home years ago. I almost gave up hope. Almost. Until this one. Sadly, I have no idea which saviour created this recipe or even where I found it (if it was you, please let me know so I can credit you!), but here goes:

(Makes 8 generous size bagels)

Ingredients

4 cups plain flour (you could use bread flour, but I never did and they turn out great!)

1 tbsp sugar

1.5 tsp salt

2 tsp fast action yeast

1 tbsp olive oil (or whichever oil you prefer if you don't like the taste of olive oil)

1.25 - 1.5 cups warm water

Method

1. Mix all of the ingredients into a stiff dough. It should be stiffer than a normal bread dough and pretty hard to knead. Basically, just add enough water to bind all of the dry ingredients together.

2. Knead for at least 10 minutes, until you have a smooth homogenous dough. You could use a dough hook on a mixer, if you have one, but this really is best done with your hands. Yes, it's tiring and your arms will hurt at the end of it but hey, it's a great way to take out the frustrations of the day. Wikihow has a great tutorial on kneading dough, if you're not too familiar with how it's done.

3. Divide dough into 8 equal balls and leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

4. Take each ball of dough and roll it on your counter top into a rope just a little longer than the width of two of your hands. Wrap the dough rope around your dominant hand and with the help of a dab of water on the end, pinch the two overlapping ends together to seal them into a loop. Leave them to rest for another 20 minutes.

5. Meanwhile pre-heat your oven to 220ºc and set up a large pan of boiling water. Either grease, or line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Greaseproof paper is my best friend when baking!

6. Gently lower your almost-bagels into the pan of boiling water (try not to do more than half at once because the temperature of the water will lower too much when you put them in) and let them float for 1 minute on each side. Then place them on your already prepared baking tray.

7. Put in the middle of your oven and cook for 10 minutes. Flip them over and cook for 10 more. They should look lightly golden on both sides.

8. Put them on a rack to cool. Then enjoy!