Growing up, bagels were one of my favorite comfort foods (breakfast, lunch, and occasionally dinner). This love only grew when I moved to New York City (from the Washington, DC area) to discover the wonders of a good New York bagel. Our apartment in Queens, where we lived for nearly ten years, was right around the corner from a bagel bakery that frequently had lines out the door on weekends.
When we moved from NYC to the Hudson Valley our options for a good bagel went from plentiful, to nearly zero. With no good bagel shops within a reasonable drive, and store bought bagels leaving something to be desired, baking our own suddenly started looking like my best option (since driving to NYC for a bagel seemed a bit much).
Finding the right recipe
We follow a mostly Gluten Free (GF) diet in our home and baking GF breads that mimic traditional glutinous breads has taken some trial and error for me to get right. A big part of learning how to bake GF breads has been through experiments with GF cookbooks checked out from the local library and searches through online cooking blogs, before finding the right recipe.
From experimenting, I found that the key to a good bagel comes down to the baking technique of first boiling and then baking bagels (discussed below). This process should be the same for either traditional or GF bagels.
Secret to a crusty and chewy GF Bagel
For GF bagels and all things GF baking I love the recipes from Cannelle et Vanille and Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple by Aran Goyoaga. The general steps to bake a bagel (using your dough recipe of choice) are:
- Mix your dough ingredients in a large bowel or stand mixer
- Form into palm sized mounds
- Allow dough to rise
- Use a chopstick or something similar push a hole through the middle of the dough mounds
- Boil bagels in water for 30 seconds on each side to form a “skin”
- Sprinkle your favorite toppings (we used everything bagel mix)
- Bake until golden brown
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