Homemade Bagels - Frugal and Delicious!

Last night, a friend came over and we made bagels together. They came out great and I really enjoyed one this morning with cream cheese for breakfast.

Here is the Honey Wholewheat Bagels recipe I used:

3 cups warm water
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp. salt
5 tsp. instant yeast
8 cups fresh ground whole wheat flour

I put the water, honey, salt and half the flour in my mixer, then added the yeast. I mixed this for about a minute and then let it sit for 15 minutes to sponge. I then added the rest of the flour, a little at a time until the dough was pulling away from the sides and not sticky. Then I let my machine knead the dough for 5 minutes.

I moved the dough to a greased bowl, covered with a towel and let it rise. It said to rise for an hour or until doubled - well, in this heat it only took 30 minutes! Then I divided it into balls (about 25, but recipe says 18 so you can make them bigger than I did), then using my thumbs, I poked a hole into the middle of each one and worked it out until the sides were about 1" and the hole in the center was about 2". Then I set them on a greased cookie sheet, covered with a towel, to rest and rise for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, I got my pot of water with 2 Tbl. of sugar on to boiling and turned my oven on to 450 degrees.

I dropped the bagels into the boiling water 3 at a time, cooked for 2 minutes on each side, then drained on a towel. As soon as they came out of the water, I sprinkled them with different toppings - parmesan and garlic, rosemary and garlic, sun-dried tomato and basil, kosher salt. Then I baked the bagels in the oven for 10 minutes, turned them over and baked for another 10 minutes.

My friend mixed the seasonings into her dough before forming the bagels. She even made some with cinnamon and raisins. They all turned out great! I put a bunch in the freezer to save for next week, but we did eat some even though it was after 10pm at night! Who can resist freshly baked bagels (or bread, or whatever!!).

I figure that the 25 bagels I made cost me about $2.50 total and about 2 1/2 hours of my time (however, when you bake with a friend, your time is never lost:-). I know at WalMart, 4 bagels usually cost about $2.00, so this was a very frugal endeavor.