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People often ask me, “Do you boil your bagels?” The answer is ‘yes’, but it takes more than boiling to make a great bagel--special ingredients and esoteric techniques! Here’s the whole story of my (admittedly geeky and non-traditional) quest for the ultimate bagel.
1. It starts way before the boil (several days before) when I mix the organic high-gluten flour with ice-cold water and stick it in the fridge for 24 hours. An enzyme called amylase goes to work on the complex starch molecules in the flour, converting them into simple sugars. Turns out this enzymatic activity works best at temperatures approaching 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, through a process called autolysis, gluten starts to develop in the dough (important for chewiness!).
2. The next day, I add yeast, salt, and organic barley malt syrup to the flour-water mix. The yeast starts feeding on the abundance of sugars, creating carbon dioxide and leavening the dough. Then I weigh and hand-shape the bagels:
3. Then back in the fridge they go, for another 12 hours. Several things happen during this stint in the cold (known as retardation). One, the yeast becomes dormant, and the lactobacilli bacteria naturally present in yeast take over, starting to make lactic and acetic acid. These are the same bacteria abundant in sourdough starters which contribute sour flavor and increased shelf life. Also, the enzymes in the barley malt syrup continue to break even more sugars out of the starch.
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4.Finally, baking day! I boil the bagels in water containing more malt syrup and baking soda, both of which encourage browning. The boiling water reactivates the sluggish yeast, sets the bagel’s shape, and gelatinizes the starches on the bagel’s exterior (more chewiness!).
After sprinkling on the toppings, into the oven they go. The left-over sugars encourage browning of the crust through the mysterious Maillard reaction. Et voila, bagels!
