Bagels!

I've had a request for my bagel recipe. It is delicious and I've made different sorts of bagels from this recipe with greater or lesser success. I'll give you the recipe and then I'll make note (*) of the things I do to have different sorts of bagels. Here goes:

Oh yeah, you'll want to leave a bit of time to do this. Start to finish it takes about two and a half hours but there is time in there (waiting for the dough to rise) where you can fold laundry or do something productive.

Ingredients:

2 egg yokes and a dash of milk for an egg wash

3 TBS dry yeast

2 TBS sugar

*1 Medium Onion — minced

3 tsp salt (altho, I've never added salt and they're usually great)

2.25 C warm water

8.25 C flour

*3-4 C of wheat flour and 4-5 C of regular flour instead of 8.25 C regular flour

Dissolve dry yeast, sugar, (*minced onion) add salt, and warm water. Gradually work in 8 cups of flour (if making wheat bagels, add wheat flour first and as much regular flour as you can) (***if you're making chocolate chip, blueberry, and Cinnamon bagels). Turn out on floured board and knead until elastic and smooth. Let rise until double in bulk (on a warm day I put it outside in the shade, in the winter I put my oven on warm and leave it there with a wet towel over top ...that will prevent crusting/baking). This is where you do something productive for a while. Turn onto floured board and knead briefly. Divide into equal parts and roll into tube shapes and join to make the traditional bagel shape. The amount of bagels this makes will depend on how big you want them to be (I usually make 16-18...cutting into 16 parts and making 2 more out of the ends that I tear off to get them to stay in the circle shape). Time to pre-heat...400F. Drop them in rapidly boiling water. One minute on each side. Take them out and put them on a baking sheet (lightly greased). Brush with egg wash (*see instructions below if you're making Asiago Cheese Bagels). Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Variations:

*Cinnamon Bagels: Two things to do: add Cinnamon to the dough near the end of kneading but certainly before you let it rise. I've never measured the amount but put in as much as you would for cinnamon rolls. 1/2 C White sugar; 2 tsp Cinnamon; 1/2 C oleo/margine. Mix this together and put it on the top of bagels just before you put them in the oven.

*Asiago Cheese: 8oz shredded Asiago Cheese is needed. After the egg wash put the desired amount of cheese on the tops of the bagels before you put it in the oven.

*Chocolate chips...I've never made these but this is how I'd do it: 2 C of either ingredient and gradually put these in to the dough when its about done being kneaded and put them in to taste...if you'd like more, put more, if not, well, you know...

Now, all you have left to do is enjoy them!!