Recipe: Bagels

For the dough:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown cane sugar
• 2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 500g white flour
• 2 teaspoons salt

For the cooking water

• 2 litres water
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Salt

For the topping:

• 1 egg
• Seeds (e.g. sesame seeds, flaxseeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds)
• Coarse salt

Allergens are marked in bold

Stir the dry yeast and sugar into 100 ml water and let stand for 5 minutes. In a mixing bowl, mix together flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture. Add another 200 ml water. Knead for at least 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough on shelf level 2 and let rise using dough proving stage 1 until it doubles in volume. Then punch it down and let it rise for another 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces and shape the pieces into balls (the more uniform and round, the better). Pierce these balls through the centre with a lightly floured finger to make a hole – the feature that makes a bagel a bagel.

Carefully enlarge the hole with your fingers until it’s about one-third the size of the bagel’s diameter.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200°C CircoTherm® hot air and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dust the finished bagels with flour, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for another 30 minutes.

In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil and stir in the honey. Carefully place 2 to 3 bagels (they must not touch one another) in the boiling water and simmer for 1 minute on each side. Remove the bagels and drain them on a wire rack.

Place the pre-cooked bagels on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, brush with the whipped egg, and sprinkle with sesame, pumpkin or poppy seeds. Bake on shelf level 3 at CircoTherm® hot air, low steam intensity, for 10 minutes. Then bake for another 10 minutes without added steam until golden.

Top the bagels with smoked salmon or hummus and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with fresh herbs.