Daring Bakers: Bagels

How embarrassingly rude of me.

Last month I received a sweet little email from our favourite Cream Puff and a Lady Mistress of the Daring Bakers asking if I’d join the growing band of online bakers. Of course I said yes. Shortly thereafter I received my first challenge, organised by Quelia and Freya: Kosher bagels.

A few weeks ago, during one of the hottest days, I turned my little, blast funace of a kitchen into a bagel-making factory. Unfortunately, my work and class scheds are as full as if my little Beanie were let loose at a rotisserie chicken joint. So not wanting to be absent during my first, official DB challenge, I made them then. I mustn’t have been in my right mind to do it at that moment. It was so hot the dough doubled in size within 45 minutes…usually it takes something like 120 minutes for that to happen.

The recipe was easy enough. The only things I would do differently are divide the dough into 24-30 (instead of the 15 the recipe called for) and keep a very, very close eye on the second rising, perhaps not allowing a second rise for more than a minute or two. Many of my bagels turned out really poofy—because they grew a bit too much while waiting for their hot water bath and expanded while in the pot. I wasn’t incredibly adventuresome with gussying them up: plain, freshly cracked black pepper, poppy seeds and sunflower seeds.

Anyway, my horridly rude behaviour.

You see, we were supposed to have our posts up by this past Monday. Unfortunately all my real-life commitments left me without enough time to post the results.

I tried getting Beanie to post them, but he’s mad at me. You see, I’ve not been home for most of the week (work from 8-5, run home and change, head off to TFE’s to do schoolwork and work-work until about midnight or one am and then head home to collapse)—the cats were fed, not by me as the exbf came by to ensure their welfare (food and attention). All this busy-ness is also to blame for me only being able to eat two of the 16-20 bagels I made. The rest went decidedly fuzzy by the time I wandered into my kitchen 10-14 days after they were made. Yeah…I should have frozen them.

So when I mentioned him making the post for me, he turned around, hopped on the couch and sat pointedly ignoring me, with his back in my direction.

Sigh…

So here they are, my photos from my first DB adventure.






cheers!
jasmine

tags: Bagels Breads Daring Bakers

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