Guerilla Bagel Recipe

“Yes, the bagel needs to be pre-boiled before baking!”

Hello my fellow Steemians, I hope you are all well. So today being my day off, I tried to enjoy a sleep in, but the water turned on and I had to get out of bed. We receive water for a couple of hours and for only three times a week here in Lobitos.

As I filled up the water tanks and water the garden, I was processing in my mind how to share my guerilla bagel recipe. Guerilla being I took a variety of recipes, experiences etc. and amalgamated them into what I will share with you today. Plus being in northern Peru, I can't acquire all the tools and ingredients necessary.

You must be a tad dedicated to your love of food and baking to embark on this one. It isn't the most technically difficult but it does require time. Two days worth of time to be precise.

Ingredients needed:

1kg (2.2lbs) of white flour
600 ml (2 ½ cups) of water
2 tablespoons of dry yeast
1 tablespoon of salt
Sesame seeds
1 small bottle of malt drink (darker the better)
Semolina flour for dusting

Preparation time: 24 hours
Downtime: 22 ½ hours (longer the better)
Cooking time 30 minutes @ 420F or 220 Celsius

Step one: Prepare the Leaven

This is an important stage in the making of any sour dough bread. It will also require that you make this the day before baking.

Here you just mix 200g (7 oz) of flour, 200ml (6.7 fl oz) of water and ½ a table spoon of yeast in a bowl. Mix well with a spoon until there are no lumps. Cover the bowl with a cloth. Set the leaven aside in a cool and dark place overnight.

Step two: Prepare dough

Collect your bowl containing the leaven. It should be puffing up and not depressed in volume. If depressed, it didn't work.

Add to the leaven the remaining 800g (28 oz) flour, 400 ml ( 13.5 fl oz) water and 1 ½ tablespoon of yeast. Mix well with a spoon. Before you require your hands, add 1 tablespoon of salt.

Then.... as explained in my previous post: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@intrepidsurfer/a-bread-recipe-so-simple-you-can-make-it-yourself

“Now you have added the salt, time to use your hand(s) to mix the dough. Do not fear the mess, at one point of kneading the texture of the dough will change and become less sticky and more elastic. Basically here you knead the dough, by folding it on itself. Basically think about how to trap air in the dough by folding it over itself. Also the process of stretching and folding of the dough makes the gluten in the flour to become stronger and release it's sugars.

I generally knead about less than 5 minutes in the bowl, then I splash the dough with a tiny bit of water. This will be absorbed by the dough and keep it from drying out. Cover your bowl with a humid tea towel too and leave for one hour”

Step three: Shaping

Your dough should now be ready to cut up. With a clean and sharp knife, cut individual pieces of dough. Each one weighing around 125g (4.5 oz). Shape them into a ball and leave them for 5 minutes. They will expand a bit in this time.

Now using your thumb, press into the centre of the ball and do this until you have broken through. It is quite elastic. Using your thumb and index fingers widen your bagel in the centre. If the void is too small, it will reseal. You will get this right through trial and error.


Before placing your bagel on a clean tray for it's final proof. Coat the underside of the bagel with semolina flour. This will stop your precooked bagel sticking to the tray.

Let the bagel rise for about 15 minutes. Not too much here as you do want your bagel to be quite dense and not fluffy.

Step four: Boiling and cooling

Ok now you have to get a big pan and boil a lot of salted water. When the salted water is boiling, then add some of your malt drink/ beer. Add just enough to change the colour of the boiling water. The malt drink will add to some flavour and change the colour to a hue of reddish brown.

Add a few proofed bagels to the boiling salt water. Make sure you just add enough bagels where they are free floating and not touching. Your bagel MUST float, if not..... sorry it isn't happening today.

Boil for two minutes without turning over the bagel, after two minutes, flip it over and boil for another two minutes (four minutes in total).

You will have a bowl full of ice cold water on hand to cool the boiled dough.

Once boiled for a total of 4 minutes, retrieve the bagel and place into the ice water bowl.

Let the bagel cool for 2 minutes and place on a drying rack. This allows excess liquid to evacuate quicker.

The point of boiling the dough is to create an outer seal to the dough, once cooked will give a unique texture to the bagel.

You must at this stage, also sprinkle semolina to the underside of your bagel. This is very necessary to stop sticking during the bake. A light dusting will do.

Place your bagels on a baking tray. Shake the tray a little when you have set all your bagels. Just make sure none have stuck.

Step five: Baking

Pre-heat your oven to 420F or 220 Celsius, place your tray in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. The bagels should start browning off by minute 25 and always keep an eye out towards the end.

Safely remove your hot baking tray from the oven.

Step six: Cooling and tasting

Ok, these are piping hot and will burn your fingers, lips and mouth if you attempt to eat straight away.

After 10 minutes, once the baking tray has cooled down. Place all your bagels on a drying rack. You could just flip them over every 10 minutes for 45 minutes.

This is important because if you do not do this, the underside of the bagel becomes soggy with trapped steam.

Once cooled, then they can be eat as is, or turned into any number of sandwiches, but all I can say is...... enjoy your creation and now you have more experience for next time.

My first simple bread recipe is found here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@intrepidsurfer/a-bread-recipe-so-simple-you-can-make-it-yourself

Follow me: @intrepidsurfer