Bagels, Einstein

The Mont was in Cincinnati for the better part of last week, so while he was gone I thought I’d try my hand at some baking. It’s easier to do such things with a little privacy, so I can avoid questions like, ‘What’re you making?’ or ‘What’s that smell?’ or ‘Why is the kitchen covered with flour?’

My experiment for the week was bagels. I’m not sure why, but I’d always assumed that bagels were tough to make—but they’re not. I already had three pounds of whole wheat dough I’d made sitting in the freezer, ready to go. I took a pound of it, flattened it out and sprinkled it with a cinnamon-sugar mix and some raisins, rolled it up like a jelly roll, then squeezed off portions that I formed into the traditional bagel shape. I let them rise a bit, dunked them in a bath of boiling water doctored with baking soda, then baked them on a hot stone.

I couldn’t believe how intense the smell when I pulled the half-dozen bagels from the oven; it was as if heaven itself had opened a bakery in my neighborhood. Even the cats lifted their heads to sniff at the spicy fragrances filling the house. When the bagels were cool enough to touch, I bit into one. The crust was hard and crunchy to the bite, and the middle moist and sweet and full of plump raisins. In a word, they were amazing.

A couple of days later I was inspired enough to try another variation with more of the whole-wheat dough. This time I filled the dough with a mixture of brown sugar, dried cherries, and crushed chocolate chips. The water bath turned out to be a lot messier, since the chocolate near the surface had a tendency to melt quickly. The result was a lot like boiling wads of dough in a vat of Swiss Miss—aromatic, certainly, but not exactly easy to clean up. The bagels themselves turned out to be just as delicious.

So in my sudden enthusiasm for bagels, I’ve been trying to think of other variations to attempt. I’ve always liked the cheese bagels, certainly. And I think a bagel with dried apple, brown sugar, and cinnamon (perhaps with a streusel topping) could be really tasty as well.

When the Mont came home yesterday, I pulled out the bags of bagels from the freezer to display. “Huh!” he said, peering at them closely. “Interesting. They look like turds.”

Martha Stewart never had to deal with these things.