Sourdough Bagels

Strangely enough, getting good bagels in America isn't as easy as you might think. There are plenty available from artisan bakers if you look, but the average supermarket bagel is more or less a puffy fake these days. This of course represents a challenge and an opportunity to the amateur baker.

Doing them with sourdough seemed obvious, not least because I think that would have been fairly traditional (granted that bagel "tradition" is pretty fast-moving, and "authenticity" is a difficult concept to work with). I used the leaven I make routinely for my spelt and wheat St Ronan's Bread, then a dough with mostly bread flour and a little whole grain spelt, barley malt added, and the lower hydration proper to a bagel. I referred to two Peter Reinhart recipes, one in Crust and Crumb and the other from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, but also departed from both at some points, not least because of the sourdough.

Here's a summary of the idea before the recipe proper. It's not that hard, but it takes some time and planning - over perhaps two days.

1. You need a sourdough starter from which to build a production leaven, or else create a one-off leaven by using a small amount of yeast to innoculate some flour and water. Building this leaven is the first stage, unless you want to create the sourdough starter - in that case go back and do that for a few days first. This production leaven gets built and then has to ferment overnight or equivalent, before being used to form the basis of the dough.

2. Using the production leaven, you make a stiff dough with mostly bread flour - but a small amount of whole wheat or spelt if fine. This dough doesn't need a long fermentation, but an autolyse (rest, if you like) of an hour will help before shaping the bagels.

3. The bagels are made by piecing or dividing the dough and forming the characteristic rings. A typical size is about 4oz/110g. Because this is a stiff dough, leaving it to rest between piecing and forming the rings may be helpful.

4. The only real proof happens after forming the bagels. An hour in a warm kitchen (on parchment/baking paper scattered with some cornmeal) should do it; after that they are refrigerated for a day or so to develop flavour. You need a couple of baking trays/cookie sheets at this stage and for baking too.

5. The most distinctive thing about bagel preparation is the boiling. This takes place right before baking. A wide sauté pan is ideal. A wire cooling rack helps at this point as well as later, for draining.

6. Baking is on trays in a very hot oven, watching closely and rotating trays as needed.

Ingredients

Production Leaven:
150g rye starter
100g whole spelt flour
100g bread flour
100g water

or, for a one-off yeast-based leaven (levain, poolish, biga etc):

250g flour
200g water
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
(make sure this is like a very wet dough - add a little more water if necessary but cut back at the dough stage).

Dough:
Leaven
1 Tbp Malt extract/syrup dissolved in 250g/ml water
500g flour (I used 375g bread flour and 125g whole spelt)
1 tsp salt

For boiling: another 1 tsp malt and 1 tsp baking/bicarb soda.

For baking: trays, parchment/baking paper (optional), cornmeal or semolina.

Here's the method with indicative times. The bagels can stay in the fridge longer if needed.

Day 1 evening
Mix ingredients for production leaven in a large bowl, cover and leave in a moderately cool place overnight

Day 2 morning
Add water with malt dissolved to the leaven and stir to disperse; add flour and salt, work into a dough. This will be stiff and take some time. Knead until all flour is incorporated and the dough becomes somewhat smooth and elastic. Cover and leave for an hour (or more if you need to, but in the fridge).

Piece the dough as desired; this quantity is for about 10 bagels. Shape each piece into a round and let rest for 10 minutes or more. When ready to form, flatten each piece with your hands to the size of a large saucer, roll up like a cigar and then roll out with the heels of your hands to a 10"/25cm rope, slightly tapered at each end. Loop the rope around the back of your hand to join the ends in your palm, squeeze together and roll it off; place on a baking sheet (etc.) dusted with cornmeal. Note that another less traditional method is just to poke a hole through the circle of dough, but you need to build up the surface tension of the dough by other means then - so let's stick to the traditional method for now.

After making them all, allow to prove for an hour or so - at cooler temperatures maybe a few - until some rising is evident. Rerigerate the sheets with bagels for a few hours or a day or overnight. The next phase requires time but you can be flexible about when to start it.

Day 3
Prehreat oven to 500F/260C. Heat sauté pan nearly full of water, adding malt and soda. When at a simmer, slide as many bagels in as you can fit (2 or 3 maybe) and boil for one minute, then flip carefully. Note that they should sink then float after 10-15 seconds. Remove and repeat with the other bagels. Drain them and place back on trays dusted with cornmeal.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, rotating the trays and changing shelves if you have more than one in use to ensure relatively even browning. Remove to rack and allow to cool (if you can...).