Well, the first weekend of my Spring Break certainly started out right, by which I mean drinking by the pool with my Brooklyn misfits escaping the brutal NYC weather. The blizzard rolled in and cancelled their flight, however, so we got an extra evening in the Floridian overcast weather together watching Cuban Fury and guzzling Joe's potent potables.
Now that the huge cold front has passed, it's very sunny, but goddamned cold (the FREEZE warning FUCKS OFF), so I decided it was high time to get my hands sticky again while hiding in my warm little hobbit hole. Time for some SPRING BREAK BAGELS.
5 PM yesterday
While watching Terence Malik's Days of Heaven (so gorgeous, and Richard Gere was just a baby), I busted out Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible so I could get started on the recipe for Levy's Bagels. I figured I could trust the daughter of the post-WWII premiere bagel peel maker in New York/New Jersey for this one.
I went with the "half recipe" for five bagels so I don't waste a ton of bread flour if I fuck up. It begins with the simple "sponge" starter-- flour, yeast, water sprinkled with the remainder of the flour, salt, pepper, etc) that you refrigerate overnight.
7 AM Today
The sponge is bubbling! I put it in my KitchenAid and mixed everything with the dough hook for 7 minutes. I found I rather enjoyed the firm slappity slap slap as it hit the sides of the bowl. Scraped it out and made a ball. It's so smooth and stretchy and flecked with the pepper. Placed it in a lightly greased bowl and also greased the top, covered tightly with plastic wrap. The warmest spot I could find in the kitchen was the op of the fridge. That's its home for the next 2 hours.
9:30 AM
Punch it down! Put it in the fridge for 4 hours!
1:30 PM
Pull out the dough to warm up for a bit.
2:00 PM
Put baking sheet on lowest rack. Pre-heat oven to 500 F. Cut up the dough and roll them out to make the classic shape.
2:30 PM
Boil those babies! The water has molasses and baking soda dissolved into it to make it shiny and brown when it bakes. I had to do this fast (30 second on each side), so I had no chance to take photos :P Make sure to place them on a baking sheet with cornmeal sprinkled all over so they don't stick. They really look more like bagel balls at this point. Maybe roll them out longer next time?
2:45 PM
5 Minutes at 5:00, then 20 minutes at 450. Then turn off oven, leave unopened for 5 minutes. Then open for five minutes. Then stick on the rack to cool! Mmmm, bagel balls!
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