How I Make Soudough Bagels

So we're gonna try to recreate those New York-style bagels that my brother and I had a few weekends ago. We just went to Apollo's, which is known for their sourdough bagels. The crunch. Whoever makes these, incredible. But it's very air-bubbly, so I'm almost wondering, like, is it a 24- or 48-hour fermentation? I usually leave my sourdough bagels out on the counter overnight, and then I'll make them in the morning. We'll be doing a little testing when we get back. So we went to Rest and Daughters, and I feel like this is more of a classic New York-style lox bagel. Definitely the crumb is, like, a lot more dense. So let's dive into it. And this one's definitely more on the chewy side. Like, the cereal's still crunchy, but I like the fillings better for this one. But the bagel better at Apollo's. Just my personal preference. My personal favorite, and don't hate me for this if you're a local to New York or New Jersey, but I really, really love the sourdough bagels that we tried. And maybe I'm partial to sourdough. I don't know. But I love how it was a little bit lighter and fluffier inside, but it was still chewy, and the outside was just this perfect crunch. And then the little bit of tanginess from sourdough, I don't know. I could eat one of those every single morning. So that's what we're going to try to recreate today. It's going to shock you how easy it is, because instead of traditional sourdough bread, or at least my sourdough bread, where you're having to kind of work with it throughout the day, this dough, you just toss everything together in a bowl around 7, 8 p.m. at night, and then you leave it on the counter. That's it. You don't even have to do anything. Now, if you wanted to do a few lifts and folds before you go to bed, like one of them, you could do like eight different times during the bowl. You could. It would add more air bubbles into your dough. Totally optional, though. I have made this so many times, and I just let it rest on the counter, wake up in the morning, shape them, and then we're done. Let's get started. Okay. First, we need to go get my sourdough starter, which I fed earlier this morning. One key step is to make sure your sourdough is fed at least four hours prior to using it. One of the key visuals is to just make sure that it has doubled in volume. Let me show you. You know what? We need to give my sourdough starter a name. Let me know what you guys think we should name my sourdough starter. But she was at here this morning, so she has risen double in volume. We're going to start off with 100 grams of our active sourdough starter. And at this point, I can kind of eyeball it. Kitchen scale is preferred. We're also going to add 300 grams of some lukewarm water. Next, we're going to add two teaspoons of some fine sea salt and then two tablespoons of honey. I like honey because it adds a bit of that malt syrupy taste, but you could also use maple syrup. You could also use brown sugar. And then I like to mix all our wet ingredients first before we add our flour. And we're not really looking for this to be smooth. We just want it to be semi-combined, semi-incorporated before we add our flour. You saw how quick I did that. Now we're adding our flour, which is 500 grams of bread flour. You could use all-purpose flour too. Bread flour just sometimes holds a better structure. Now the dough is going to be on the sticky side. It's also going to be on the stiffer side. So it's not going to be super loose or anything. So you're going to probably have to work it with your hands for at least like a minute or two. The goal is to make sure that there's no dry flour on the sides of the bowl, the bottom of the bowl. So just use your fingers to really scrape down all that flour so that it's absorbed by our sourdough starter and our water. Now we're just going to cover it with some plastic wrap or you could do like a damp. So run it under some warm water and then wring out as much water as you possibly can. And you want it to be a lightweight kitchen cloth too. So a damp, lightweight kitchen cloth. We're just really trying to trap in the moisture. We don't want our dough to dry out. And we're going to let this sit on the counter for about 8 to 12 hours. I prefer to do this overnight, but you could start this in the morning and have bagels at like 8 o'clock at night. I would probably just make this at nighttime, let it rise overnight, and then finish shaping and baking in the morning. Obviously, I'm not going to make y'all wait until tomorrow. So I made a batch last night and we're going to go ahead and shape our bagels. I like to make about 6 bagels out of this dough. And we need to first flour our surface. And then we're going to roll them into really tight balls. And then press our thumb in the centers to help shape out that center hole. A few little tricks I've learned over the years when making bagels is it's nice to use a floured surface to divide out the dough into the individual balls. But then when you go to actually shape the balls, it's best to kind of use a bench scraper, a spatula, or just your hand to get rid of that excess flour. Use your pinky fingers to help roll that ball tightly against a clean surface. This is just going to create that resistance so that the surface is nice and tight and smooth. And then it creates this beautiful crust on your bagels when you go to bake them. And it's okay if they're not perfectly even or perfectly smooth. That's what gives them that made-from-scratch signature touch. Now that all our bagels are shaped, I put them back on a floured surface. And I'm also going to dust the tops with a little bit of flour. You don't have to worry about this thing on there because once we boil it, all the flour will come off. This is just going to help the plastic wrap. You can also cover with a damp, lightweight kitchen towel. Not stick to the bagels. So we're going to let these rest for about 30 minutes to an hour at room temperature. And I'll see you guys soon. So one of the signature parts to making bagels is boiling them prior to baking them. This is what gives them that iconic chewy texture that we all love. So I have a large pot filled with water and it's already boiling. And we're going to add 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. You could also use regular granulated cane sugar. But I like using brown sugar because it has molasses in it. And then 1 tablespoon of fine sea salt. We're just going to give that a little mix to combine. Those probably instantly dissolve when it's boiling. Now we're going to boil our bagels for about 1-2 minutes on each side. You want to use a slotted spoon to help transfer it over to our baking pan that's already been lined with parchment paper. And then while it's still tacky and a little bit wet, we're going to dip the tops into our seasonings of choice. Which today is everything bagels so we can make some New York style lox bagels. It's now time to bake our bagels. I preheated my oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. We're going to bake these for about 25-30 minutes. The goal is for them to be nice and deeply golden brown on top. I'm so excited. I'm going to show you 2 of my favorite ways to eat the bagels. One obviously being a lox style. I also have only had a slice of toast for breakfast. So I'm ready. I'm ready to have some real breakfast. One thing I did forget to mention. We want to create steam in our oven when making bagels. So there's a few ways you can do this. Bagel shops use it by soaking a bagel board in water overnight and it helps create steam. And then you kind of flip them over halfway through baking to create that nice golden crust. Two other ways I like to do it is I'll add a cake pan or a smaller baking pan into a lower rack in the oven as the oven preheats. And then I'll add water right before I add my bagels. And then the third way, which is what we're going to do now because I forgot to add a pan in the oven as it preheated. And the reason you do that is because you want it nice and hot so that when the water hits it, it creates immediate steam. There is a drip pan in my oven and it holds water really well without like ruining the oven. So I'm just going to add like a fourth cup of water directly to that drip pan. That'll help create the steam immediately. And then she's set. Our bagels are done. I already sliced into one. And the texture turned out so, so perfect. It's nice and chewy. I think that outside could have been a little bit crunchier. You know, like when you go to New York and you get just a bagel and you can like rip it apart in half with your hands. And it's that perfectly chewy inside and then that golden crunchy outside that just go crunch, crunch, crunch. You know, like you pick it up and try to put it down. So, yeah. I think that would have been better achieved with a big board. I'm going to circle back, try to order one off at Amazon and retry it. That way they're still crispy on the outside. They just could be better. You know, you gotta, we gotta be honest here. So, I just sliced one in half. Maybe I'll just go ahead and use that one for our lox style bagel. Do you guys prefer a toasted bagel or an untoasted bagel? I feel like when it's crispy, like well, like a well golden brown crust on the outside, you don't really have to toast it. We're going to do a butter and jam version because I have a lot of extra strawberry rhubarb jam because I've been making cakes with it, cookies. And it's just one of my favorite breakfasts to make that's really quick and on the go. And for that, I do love my bagel or my bread slice toasted. Have some smoked wild salmon that we'll add. Then we'll add some thinly sliced red onions. Some capers. Capers are very underrated in my opinion. And then lots of fresh dill. And then maybe a little bit of black pepper. We have our first combo. Let's give it a try together. Mmm. If I had to rate this to the sourdough bagels we had in New York, I think I would give it a 9 out of 10. Like we're almost there. I just got to figure out how to get that ultra crunchy exterior, which again, I think may come from the bagel board. This was a really, really close second to being right up there in New York. And I just love how good sourdough is for the gut. They're just so easy to make at home in the comfort of your home. And yeah, I'm going to enjoy eating that in a hot minute. But first, I have to show you my second favorite. So I have one bagel that's kind of more poppy seed than the everything bagel seasoning with like garlic and sesame seeds, which obviously can lean on that savory side. Slicing another one in half. And then I'm going to pop it and kind of shake off some of the excess garlic granules. And I'll pop this baby in the toaster so that we can toast it inside. We're going to pop this under the broiler for another like minute. Looking so bubbly. I mean, I didn't really need to show you guys this, but it's just such a simple combo that hits the spot every time. And it's one of my favorite things to eat in the morning with coffee. So good. We're missing just a little bit of sea salt on top. Now we're talking. So that's all the bagel content for today. Though we will be reporting back with the bagel boards maybe like in a month or so, because I'm very intrigued to see the difference in baking style. I love this sourdough bagel recipe. There's so many different fun ways you can add toppings to it, like cinnamon, raisin in the batter the night before, and then maybe doing like a cinnamon butter crumble crust on top. That sounds so delightful. You could do just plain cinnamon or poppy seed or sea salt, which is also another family favorite or the classic everything bagel style. But anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thanks for tagging along, and I'll see you guys next week.