Bread Baker's Apprentice—Bagels

Bagels are a favorite in our house and Montreal-style bagels in particular are popular in Ottawa. I haven't eaten many New York-style bagels so I was keen to give them a try.

I was curious about what makes a Montreal-style bagel different from a New York-style bagel. The Montreal-style bagel is usually small, crunchy and sweet. It's made with malt and sugar rather than salt and is baked in a wood-fired oven. The New York bagel is more puffy, with a softer crust and a somewhat savory flavor since it uses salt instead of sugar. Also, unlike the typical Montreal bagel, it is baked in a standard oven.

Bagels have a long history going back possibly as far as ancient Egypt; however, popular myth places the invention of the bagel in Krakow shortly after the 1683 Battle of Vienna. As the story goes, a baker made a roll in the shape of the king's stirrup and called it a beugel (which is Austrian for "stirrup") as a thank you to King Sobieski who saved Austria from the Turks. Bagels were brought to North America in the early 1900s by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. They settled largely in Montreal and New York City leading to those cities developing the major bagel styles we eat today.

"The bagel [is] an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis."
—Beatrice and Ira Freeman, in "About Bagels", New York Times May 22, 1960

The recipe calls for a high-gluten flour, which is not readily available in Canadian stores, and I found out why: it turns out that all-purpose flour in Canada already is high-gluten! This makes our standard flour particularly good for breads and generally anything crusty…including bagels.

Recipe

Makes 12 bagels

For the Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour
2½ cups water at room temperature

For the Dough:
½ teaspoon instant yeast
3¾ cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour
2¾ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons malt powder

To Finish:
1 tablespoon baking soda
Cornmeal or semolina flour for dusting
Sesame seeds, kosher salt
You can find the recipe for Bagels in the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. To see how the rest of the BBA (Bread Baker's Apprentice) Challenge group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
These bagels tasted great, especially with a schmear of dill cream cheese. But I found the flavor a bit dull with a simple salted butter. Toasted was a different story: these bagels were excellent served toasted with butter. For sprinkles, I chose to use sea salt and sesame seeds. In hindsight, next time I would choose more neutral flavors that are suited to both savory and sweet cream cheeses (like pineapple cream cheese).

The recipe suggested boiling the bagels for 1 minute for a soft texture and 2 minutes for a chewier texture. So, I split the batch in half and tried it both ways. Honestly, I don't think I would have noticed the difference if I weren't looking for it, but if I had to pick I would probably choose the longer boiling time.

So, which is better? Montreal or New York-style? As much as I enjoyed the New York-style I think I'll have to go with Montreal. Now where to find a great Montreal-style bagel recipe...

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