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Wheat Bagels – Onion, Poppy seed Bagels from scratch! serve with your favorite vegan cream cheese. Vegan Breakfast Recipe.
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Time for some bagels. All home made, half whole wheat, without added conditioners and such. Bagels are chewy breads, like pretzels, boiled in water, and then baked. The pretzels have baking soda added to the water while for bagels, malt(malted barley) syrup is added. The added malt slightly permeates the dough to give it color and shine. The boiling also reactivates the yeast and pre-gelatinizes the starch on the surface of the bagels which contributes to their chewiness.
There are other ways to make bagels as well. This is how I make mine. You can boil anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds on each side for desired chewyness.
Malt syrup is not easy to find, so I used dark Agave nectar. You can use any dark sugary alternative.
For all yeast breads, buns, pretzels, see the Collection here.
The well formed bagel is Onion bagel. The dough was kneaded well and smooth. Shaped by rolling into a long rope and sticking the ends.
The other poppy seed and sesame seed topped bagels were kneaded for 3 minutes. Shaped by making buns and poking holes. These worked out well too, just not a perfect smooth shape.
For super Chewy Bagels: Don’t let the Bagels rise too long after shaping, Boil them for shorter time. Use high gluten flour and make a stiff smooth dough. Keep the dough overnight for best results.
Bagels boiled and ready for some poppy seed sprinkle.
Wheat Bagels - Onion and Poppy seed Bagels
serve with your favorite vegan cream cheese. Vegan Breakfast Recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 1.5 cups whole wheat flour, I use Bob's Red Mill
- 1.25 cups bread flour
- 1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten, optional- for chewier bagels
- 1 Tablespoon agave syrup, or malt syrup
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon raw sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons active yeast, Red Star
- 1 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or virgin coconut oil
- For onion bagels- add a Tablespoon of onion flakes.
Boiling:
- 4-5 cups water
- 1 Tablespoons agave or malt syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
Toppings:
- Onion flakes
- Poppy seeds
- sesame seeds
- sunflower seeds
- watermelon seeds
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add 1/4 cup warm water, 1 teaspoon raw sugar and yeast. Mix and let sit until frothy(10 minutes).
- Add salt to the 1.5 cups wheat flour and mix. Add wheat flour, 1 cup bread flour, wheat gluten if using, to the yeast mix.
- Add onion flakes for onion bagels.
- Add agave, oil, rest of the water and knead 5-6 minutes in stand mixer or 8-9 minutes by hand.
- If the dough is very sticky, then add a little bread flour until the the dough is soft and smooth.(more of the stiff side).
- Place dough in well greased container. Cover with towel and let sit for 1.5 hours or until doubled.
- Punch dough down, use a Tablespoon or so bread flour to help make the dough less sticky. (You can refrigerate the dough at this point overnight for chewier bagels. Next day, let the dough sit out for an hour before continuing).
- Divide into 6 equal parts.
- Start up the water bath to boil over high heat. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Shape each part into a bagel. Make a long rope by rolling between your palms and then sticking the ends together with atleast a 3 finger hole in between. or make a ball, poke a large hole using wet fingers or fat round spatula handle.(the bagels expand while boiling, hence reducing the hole, so keep the hole larger or you will get an almost bun like, small hole, pictured onion bagel .
- Add agave and salt to the boiling water, mix. Add bagels 2 or 3 at a time and let boil for 30 seconds on each side.
- Take them out and place on a towel.
- You can directly bake these for plain bagels on a baking sheet.
- Optional step: For a shiny gloss, mix a Tablespoon cornstarch in 2 Tablespoons water. Mix well. add a 1/4 cup boiling water and mix until thick. Brush this on the top.
- Sprinkle your toppings on the bagels. Press down a bit to stick. or dip the bagel upside down in the bowl of seeds.
- Place bagels on parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 17-20 minutes.(25 minutes for larger sized bagels).
- Let cool before slicing or storing.
- Top with vegan butter, vegan cream cheeze, herbed oil, marmalade, nut butters or use to make your fave loaded burgers!
Notes
Nutritional values are based on one bagel
Nutrition
Calories: 252kcal, Carbohydrates: 47g, Protein: 8g, Fat: 3g, Sodium: 691mg, Potassium: 163mg, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 5g, Calcium: 19mg, Iron: 1.4mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did you make this recipe? Rate and comment below!
If you havent already heard about this new series Satyamev Jayate, you need to read and know about it. A new Talk show started up some weeks back, hosted by one of the top actors of Bollywood(thats the Indian film Industry). It is being compared to Oprah in terms of bringing up some important issues and also discussing and following up on solutions.
The first episode was about Female Foeticide in India. The gender preference has lead to the death of more than 30,000,000 unborn girls in the last 30-40 years. The stories of people and the depreciating value of the girl child and solutions like education, and harsher laws against gender based abortions and torture are all discussed. The episode below is in the Hindi, with English Subtitles. For a more global view of the problem see ItsaGirl documentary.
I love how your bagels turned out. look more like buns, but still chewy as a bagel!
yeah we ate the ones with a decent size hole:) so i had to take pictures with the ones that were left.. that is only 1 onion bagel that was left with a tiny hole:)
Great looking bagels. I just heard about the show, will watch it.
Give it a go for sure!
the bagels look delicious. i have bookmarked this recipe to me made soon.
Thanks Dassana:) let me know how they turn out!
Oh my…your bagels look SO delicious. I have to make some for tomorrow morning.
i ALWAYS wondered why bagels are boiled! you are just a wealth of knowledge, richa! these bagels look amazing. i want an onion one, i can’t tell you the last time i had a bagel!
they will be like regular bread if not boiled:) you can make cara’s bagels or try making with my gf naan recipe:)
Healthy and delicious ..
These look so delicious…I too wanted to bake something with poppy seeds but these are banned here in UAE, so have to stick with other options.
On the other note I really loved watching satyamev jayate, what an eye opener show, last episode just shook me to the core, a responsible and informative programme like this was very much needed.
Thanks Raji, you can put other seeds on them:)
Its definitely a well researched show, i hope some solutions come out of it.
I am on such a poppyseed kick right now; these look so lovely! I want to have them toasted with vegemite 🙂
i want some too.. finished the current batch!
Those bagels look delish, Richa.
We used to enjoy bagels regularly when we lived at NYC but here you rarely get any and the available ones aren’t that good.
Looking forward to seeing you GF bagels version. 🙂
Those bagels look delish, Richa.
We used to enjoy bagels regularly when we lived at NYC but here you rarely get any and the available ones aren’t that good.
Looking forward to seeing you GF bagels version. 🙂
Thanks Sus! you can use the gf naan to make the gf bagels.. works out fine!
So you directly boil the dough or steam them a bit first to make them less sticky?