Montreal bagels

Ingredients

• Strong flour700 g
• Warm water300 ml
• Dry yeast10 g
• Eggs2
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Sugar60 g
• Honey — for the boiling water150 g
• Sesame seeds150 g
• Poppy seeds100 g
• Salt1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and leave it ten minutes, until it foams.

   12 min

2. 2

   Knead a dough from the flour, yeast mixture, eggs, oil and salt and work it fifteen minutes until elastic.

   18 min

3. 3

   Let it rise somewhere warm for an hour and twenty, until doubled.

   85 min

4. 4

   Divide it into twelve, roll each into a rope and join the ends into a ring with a large hole.

   20 min

5. 5

   Bring a large pot of water to the boil with the honey and lower the rings in three or four at a time.

   12 min

6. 6

   Boil them a minute a side and roll them in sesame or poppy seed at once.

   15 min

7. 7

   Bake at 230 °C for twenty minutes, to a deep golden crust, turning them once halfway.

   25 min

About the dish

They are boiled in honey water rather than with soda. The honey gives sweetness and a caramel crust, and that is the chief difference from a New York bagel with its saltier dough.

The hole is made large and the ring thin. A Montreal bagel is smaller and denser, and the big hole is part of its shape rather than carelessness.

They are rolled in sesame or poppy seed straight after boiling, while the dough is wet. A minute later it dries and the seeds fall off in the oven.

Worth knowing

• — Do not stint on the honey in the water. It gives the crust its caramel colour, and with less the bagels stay pale.
• — Turn them in the oven halfway through. Without it the base stays pale while the top darkens too far.
• — A Montreal bagel is eaten the day it is baked. It is denser than a New York one and stales faster — the next day it goes into the toaster.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

340 kcal

Protein

10 g

Fat

9 g

Carbs

56 g

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