Bagels are something I could literally live of off, so mastering making them from scratch with natural ingredients was fairly high on my priority list.
Here’s my easy recipe for homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bagels, and I promise you that it easier than you think!
Recipe Notes:
- The easiest way to do this is let to dough rise overnight. It’s extremely quick to mix up, especially if you use a bread hook and Kitchenaid mixer, and letting it rise overnight allows you to just shape, boil, and bake them the next morning! If you don’t want to let it rise overnight and you want to eat them sooner (I don’t blame you) then just let the dough rise in a warm place for at least 1 hour, or until it doubles in size.
- Bagel dough is very easy to work with! But do not tear it, as it ruins the strands of gluten in the dough. Instead, always use a sharp knife to cut bagel dough as needed.
Shaping bagels is extremely easy once you master a few easy tricks!
Follow these easy steps to shape perfect bagels:
🥯Make sure to only cut the dough with a sharp knife when you divide the dough into 8 pieces, as tearing it will destroy the gluten strands in the dough.
🥯To begin shaping the dough before you poke a hole and shape the actual bagel, you essentially just turn the ball of dough around in your hand while pinching what will become the bottom seam of the ball – this pulls the dough that is touching the palm of your hand nice and taught and will help create a smooth round ball.
🥯Once you have a mostly smooth round piece of dough, put the seam side down onto an un-floured surface. Next, cup your hand around the back of the dough ball, kind of forming a wall with your hand, then slide your hand along the counter an inch or two — slightly dragging the dough across the counter towards you. Rotate the ball while still keeping the seam-side down, and repeat the sliding motion, until the bottom seam of the ball is almost totally smooth.
🥯Once you have a smooth ball, poke your thumb through the center of the ball of dough, and gently evenly stretch the hole to form the bagel. The key is to form the bagels with an extra-large center hole, because if the holes are too small they will close up as the bagels rise, boil, and bake.