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Today I felt like New York bagels but we are not in NYC so I decided to make my own.  Ingredients are pretty simple: flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, and luckily we had some good toppings in the cupboard (sesame seeds and Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel mix).

The process isn’t difficult but there are quite a few steps.  The first one was to proof the yeast by combining it with warm water and sugar.  This usually takes about 5 minutes, so while that was going on, I combined the flour and salt and made a well for the yeast mixture.

Once the 5 minutes as up and the yeast was activated, I poured it into the dry mix.

Then I had to mix everything together and knead the dough for 10 minutes.  It was very stiff: I got a good arm workout!

After that, I let the dough rise till it doubled (about an hour) and then punched it down.  That was satisfying.

Then I split the dough into 8 pieces, rolled each one into a ball, and then made a hole in the center of each ball to make the bagel shape.

The next step was weird but apparently essential: I cooked each bagel in boiling water for 1 minute each side.

After that, it was time to top them (with sesame or everything bagel mix) and put in the oven to bake.

20 minutes later, I had fresh NYC bagels!