Mr. Barefoot's Guest Post #2

This Slate piece on homemade vs storebought crossed my screen last week; many of the items considered turned out not to be worth the time, but the bagels got rave reviews, so I decided it would be a good weekend project (something I've been short of lately, other than wedding planning). The recipe is pretty involved, so I won't reproduce it here - just follow the link and try them yourself.

Baking isn't really my thing, so it probably wasn't a smart move to kick Ellie out of the kitchen for offering too much advice - especially before she'd gotten around to defining a "light coat" of flour on a work surface...(hint: It's not light. If you can see any part of the work surface, you're not done. Bagel dough is sticky, sticky stuff. I may start using it as a construction adhesive.) (hint #2: dough allegedly sticks less to plastic cutting boards than wood. Ideally I would have used the counter - it wound up covered in flour anyway so it's not like I got out of cleaning it - but I didn't feel like dealing with any remnants of the various toxic - er, all-natural - cleaning products it's most likely coated in.

Despite all those challenges, the bagels turned out pretty darn well. They were amazing straight out of the oven, and at least as good as generic store-bought the next morning. I wouldn't expect them to last too well, but I didn't have the chance to test that. I topped a handful with various spices that were within easy reach - minced onion flakes, cinnamon sugar, mixed-up pepper, and cumin seed, but the dough was tasty enough to stand on its own. In the future I would probably experiment with including cheese (chunks, so you get the big pockets in the dough lined with thick melted cheese) or caraway seeds, but always leaving at least half plain. Next time I'll also make a smaller batch, because this is too much bread to eat in a single weekend.