Easy Bagels with Mel

Hi everybody and welcome to my kitchen. Check it out. Check this out. How cool is this? Now my new apron was sent in by Cameo and not only did she design this apron, she went ahead and made it and then she posted it to me and I absolutely love it and I cannot thank you enough and I hope you guys love it too. So I had to mix things up today. So usually when I make my videos I start the video by saying okay let's get started and then when I'm finished making the recipe I do my intro so I've got something to show you. Hence look at what we're making today. Well I'm not doing it that way today because I wanted to introduce my apron while it was beautiful and clean and brand new. So here's our new look. We have an apron. So hopefully this keeps me out of trouble. Now not only did Cameo send this beautiful apron but she also sent in a really great recipe that I'm not going to make today because I know I'm going to get dirty when I make it and I just want to keep this apron clean at least for a little bit longer. We'll see how we go today. So I better let you know what we're making today and we're making bagels. We're going to make some plain bagels and we're going to make some blueberry bagels. Now usually when I make my bagels I use bread flour but today I'm going to give it a go with just plain flour and see if that works. Let's go. I was about to say let's get into it but that's what Mark says so we can't steal his line. Let's get started on our recipe. So let's make the plain bagels first because I'm really worried that I'm going to get blueberry juice on my new apron so let's stay clean for a little bit longer and do the plain ones. So the first thing we need to do is just weigh some flour. Now as always with your bread making it is really important to weigh everything so this time I'm not going to give you cup conversions because you have to weigh it and if anyone out there wants to ask why the answer is because I said so. So like I said I'm just going to use plain flour and we need 450 grams. Weighing it. See how I'm using my scoop that's just so you can't guess how many cups it is and you can't quickly convert it by yourself and then into my flour I'm just going to put some salt. So we want about 20 grams of salt and don't be too alarmed with 20 grams of salt it's only about half a tablespoon and then I'm just going to give that a quick whisk. So as you can see I'm using my stand mixer today. You can do this by hand but because I'm doing two batches I think I need a little bit of help. I got so excited about my apron that I forgot to get everything out and now we just want some water and some milk. Now most of the time I either use water or milk but today we're using both so it is a watered down milk. You could probably use skim milk but I just use milk and top it up with a bit of water. So into my jug I'm putting 250 grams of milk. Now I don't say 250 ml because it's really important that you weigh your wet ingredients as well. Take your own advice. Oh and then to my milk I'm just adding 110 grams of water. 130 and now I'm just going to pop this in the microwave. It should take about 30 seconds but I'll put it on for 20 and then I'll see if it needs another 10. It might even need another 20. I'll let you know. So far so good hey. I'm shocking it's staying clean. Good thing I do the washing. So my milk took 50 seconds to get to the temperature that I want and the temperature that I want is when I stick my finger in it it feels warm to touch and now we want some sugar into here and we're putting 30 grams of sugar. Oh I'm not going to know how much it is if I don't get my scales back under there. Let's try that again. 30 grams and then we also want some dry yeast. Now I keep my yeast in the freezer. I know it's in a jar and I've just got my little Makona plastic thing on the top of that but I keep it in the freezer and it's fine and it stays super super fresh like that and we want 10 grams of yeast and I'll just get that back in the freezer. No I won't because we're doing two batches and then we just give that a little whisk lightly because we should not be mixing things on our scales and then we're just going to mix these two things together. I'll turn this on and then I'll just add that in and then I'll come and get you and I'll talk you through what your dough should look like. Now when you're mixing up your dough you can put it a little bit faster so that it mixes together a little bit quicker and then once your dough starts to come together just turn your mixer back down. Now I can see by looking at this dough it is too wet so we need some more flour. So just pop a little bit more flour in there and just watch your dough. Now I can see that it's still stuck on the sides of my bowl. Now when I'm putting in a little bit of flour I'm only putting in the tiniest amount, probably a tablespoon and now we can see our dough coming together. A sure sign that you're getting the right mix is that it starts to clean your bowl for you. Now when I'm making my dough not only am I making sure that that dough ball is picking up anything on the side of the bowl but I'm watching down there in the centre of my bowl and just watching how sticky is the centre. See how it starts to stick like that? That still means my dough is still a little bit too sticky and now that that flour has mixed through you can see that the dough isn't sticking in the centre of the bowl now and that's exactly what we want. And then we're just going to set our oven timer for 10 minutes and let it do it for us and then after 10 minutes we should have the perfect. Now my dough is a little bit sticky but it shouldn't stick all on your hands. Do you know how many times I've already wiped my hands on my new apron? Now our dough should come out of here without sticking all over us so we'll see how we go. I'm not going to flour my bench I'm just going to get this dough out as is and then we can just roll this out until we get it into a really nice ball. Now you will feel straight away that this dough feels amazing. It's nice and soft and relaxed but we want to get this into a nice smooth ball. So just stick it on your bench and just pull it towards you so that it gets a really nice tight skin over the top of your ball and then we're just going to pop this in a buttered bowl. Now you can butter your bowl or you can grease your bowl with oil it doesn't matter but I always have a little jar with a paintbrush in it that has butter in it anyway because I'm always buttering something. So quick grease and then in with our little ball and then we're just going to cover this up and leave it somewhere for around about an hour and that should give it a chance to just about double in size and then we can get onto the ones. So a quick cleanup and then we can go again. Let's make the blueberry bagels. Now I'm feeling pretty confident that the plain flour is going to work so I'm going again with the plain flour so 450 grams and then same again with the salt so 20 grams and then a quick whisk and on the mixer it goes. Now for the wet ingredients. Now I've already measured out 250 grams of milk the same amount that we put in the plain bagels and then I've just got some frozen blueberries. Now I have just let those defrost give them a bit of a mash with a fork and that's about a half a cup. Into the milk they go. Now there was a combination of mushed ones whole ones whatever doesn't matter get them in your milk. So now I've had my scales there on zero and that is 56 grams of blueberries so I know I want 110 grams of water so I'm just going to top this up with water until it gets to my 110 grams hopefully that makes sense. So the blueberries and the water added together is 110 grams and then 30 grams of sugar and 10 grams of oh no don't put the sugar and the yeast in there until you warm that up. I've already put my sugar thank goodness I didn't put my yeast give it a quick whisk. So before you put your sugar in there heat this up remember 20 seconds 20 seconds and then 10. Well I'm heating it with my sugar in there oops did I get any blueberry on me I'm staying pretty clean cameo. I just love this apron I think it's so fancy. So just to clarify I usually do microwave my milk my blueberries and my water together I don't usually have my sugar in there quick whisk quick feel feels good feels just warm and now we can add our yeast so 10 grams of yeast and now that can go back in the freezer and then a quick whisk and we can get these together again and then same again we're just going to turn this on add the wet ingredients if it needs a little bit more flour then we'll add it oh I saw Kerri-Ann do that one day I never thought I'd do it good thing it was clean do that again imagine how quickly that could catch onto your hair or your arm or your clothing I reckon this thing would be stronger than you so anyway together oh maybe that was a bit too fast and then same again if it's wet like mine just add some more flour and just add a little bit at a time until you get that right look to it and that right look is that it's not looking sticky anymore and then same again just keep an eye on the middle of that bowl and just watch how it's coming together I think this should be just about right and then I can see that it's not sticking down there it's looking good and now I can set my timer for 10 minutes there's our timer so that's had 10 minutes and once again just oil your bowl before you put your dough in it and I just happen to have a bowl that's going to match my blueberry bagels so quick grease and then we get this out oh I nearly did it again and you can see this one is a bit sticky so if yours is a bit sticky like that don't worry about it just get it out anyway and you can see that it is a bit sticky it's stuck to my hands a little bit but not a mushy mess it will still roll into a nice ball oh it feels great so once again just a nice smooth ball we're not kneading that or anything we're just making it smooth and then once again into our bowl and cover with a nice clean cloth put it somewhere nice and warm and then this one should be ready just after the plain ones and when I've got a couple of things on the go I always just take a timer wherever I sit this and just sit the timer with it so our dough has had exactly an hour my timer just went off and it has doubled in size it looks fantastic let's get it out straight out on your bench and now just get it back into a little ball not being too rough with it and then we want to weigh this and divide it by 10 because we're making 10 plain bagels with this one so my dough weighs 980 grams so divide that by 10 we need 98 grams each bagel so that's all we have to do is just chop it up into 10 even pieces now if you can eyeball that and you're confident to do that by eye then you go right ahead but I'm weighing mine and they'll be 98 grams each oh not 118 see that one would have been a big one now with your dough every time you handle it it is going to tighten up so we only want to handle it the minimal amount of time now we want to roll these into bagels but we also want to roll them into balls first so if you just roll them into your balls as you go it gives them a little bit longer to sit and rest so just do that as you go and then by the time we come back to them they would have softened up a little bit and we can make them into our bagel shape if you were trying to roll these into a ball now and then get them into your bagel shape they're just a little bit tight for you to do that just yet so balls it is for the moment and then once you've rolled all your bagels into their little balls the first one should have had long enough to sit and now we can shape it into our bagel shape now lots of people do their bagels different ways I find the easiest way for me is to just put my finger in the middle so underneath and just squeeze it and poke your fingers through until your fingers touch each other and then just stretch it out into your shape now when you are making your bagels you want to make your center hole quite big so don't be too scared to stretch them right out and then I'm just going to sit that little bagel on my tray that has the lightest dusting of flour only the smallest amount and then we just keep going now when I'm making my bagels I really don't mind if the hole closes up a little bit because it just means I can get more filling on it now when you're putting them on your tray just make sure you leave plenty of room because we're going to leave these for 10 minutes to just prove and puff up a little bit and when you are stretching them out just try and keep them as even as you can otherwise you will have one high side and one low side just be mindful of your shape if you want them really nice and then once you're happy with all your bagels we just cover them up and leave them for 10 minutes and don't worry we've got stuff to do now so the first thing we want to do is put our oven on now I am putting my oven at 200 degrees celsius and that is a fan forced so that's a really hot oven and then we want to put some water on to boil now I cook my bagels in a boiler you can cook them in a deep fry pan or whatever you want to do as long as they float a little bit in water you will be fine so I've got my little pot here and I'm going to get this on the stove and I probably have about 10 centimeters of water in this pot now before I get this water on the heat I'm just going to add some sugar now we want to add about a quarter of a cup even a half a cup if you want them a little bit sweeter so I just go there about so that was about a quarter of a cup maybe a little bit more and then I'm just going to pop this on the heat and bring it up to a little simmer now the first bagels we're making here are plain bagels but I do still put something on the top you don't have to put anything on the top but it just makes it that little bit nicer so once these bagels have sat here for 10 minutes we're going to plop them in this water for only a couple of minutes either side and then we're going to bake them but when they're wet is when we want to put anything on the outside because that's when it's going to stick now today on the top of my bagels I'm going to try this bagel seasoning that I picked up see how we go smells really good I'm going to need more than that so whatever you want on the top of your bagel just pop it in a tray so then we can just put our bagel in there flip it over get it coated and then we'll put it back on this tray no we won't we'll get a different tray out because we're not going to bake them on that so we're all ready the oven's heating we've got our seasoning the water's on the stove we've got our tray ready to bake them we just got to wait a couple more minutes by the time this water comes to the boil I'm sure these will be ready so I've got my water simmering my bagels have probably been sitting here for about 10 minutes maybe 15 just keep an eye on them whatever shape they start to become now is what they're going to be so if you need to take yours a little bit further 20 minutes depending on how cold your house is maybe yours only took five if you've got a nice warm home so now we want to get these in the water now this is going to be quite challenging because I'm going to try and boil these and show you guys what I'm doing at the same time see how I go I'll get ready for you so these are all the things we need we need our bagels because they're going into our water and then they're going into our bagel seasoning and then they're going on this tray that's the production line process so my water's just on a really nice little simmer let's get these bagels in now when you're picking your bagels up they are quite soft but just plop them in now I usually put about four that's about what I handle whoops see I put fingerprints in that one it is a little bit better if you stick your finger in the hole now we just leave those there to simmer for one to two minutes then flip them over one to two minutes on the other side and then we get them out and that is it then we bake them so once they've been in the water for a little while they're a lot easier to handle they're quite soft when you first put them in but they firm up in no time and you can really fiddle with them now once your bagels have had a couple of minutes on either side just flip them over so they're right side down before you try and get them out and then we just get them out and they'll be right side to go straight onto our little seed mix and then we can just pop them onto there pop them onto your little tray with your seeds or whatever topping you're putting and then just flip them over if you want seasoning just on one side then you just have it on one side but I'm having it on both sides of mine I think I need more and then just straight out onto your tray ready to go in the oven so that was a bit of chaos me trying to hold the camera as well as do this so I'm not going to do that again I think you should watch from there so I can fit six on my tray they look fantastic in the oven 20 minutes being sure to set your oven timer now we've got a fair bit going on you'll be thankful for multiple timers I'm going to set that for 10 minutes because I'm thinking they are going to need turning and then I've got my second tray with four and I'm going to get that in as well and I can always just alternate these once they've been in the water they don't do much else so you can fiddle around with them it's not like other bread recipes that do not open the oven do not touch they might collapse these will now stay this shape and now we can have a look at these blueberry ones so they've been sitting there for as long as it took us to cook those ones and look how beautiful they are they look fantastic now when I do my blueberry bagels I like them to be sweet and I like to put a little bit of sugar on the top so that's what I'm going to do with these ones no seasoning just sugar but we've only just put our plain bagels well seasoned bagels now aren't they we've only just put those in the oven so we're not ready for these we don't have room so I'm just going to sit those there on my cold bench it'll slow the proving down and they'll just have to wait their turn non-eyes now they've only had five minutes and they already look fantastic I will continue to turn these and if I think they're getting too dark I can always put a little bit of foil over the top to slow them down but they definitely need to cook for 20 minutes how am I going with my apron oh look what we've done first battle scar cam oh well it'll wash out I don't think it's blueberry so mine were browning a little bit too quickly so I've just put a piece of foil over the top only the ones on the top shelf though oh they smell so good I should start cleaning up some of this mess now I can smell garlic so I should tell you what was in my seasoning mix so this seasoning has got toasted sesame seeds garlic onion and Australian sea salt there you go so while those bagels are finishing off let's start on the blueberry ones now you can just stay over there this time you were a bit too hard to handle now remember when you're picking them up just be really gentle the faster you go the better and if your little holes have closed up a bit you can always just stick your thumb back in there give them a little bit of a shake before you put them in my blueberry ones I'm just gonna sprinkle the top with some sugar and if you want sugar on both sides then you roll away look at that I'm gonna get some oh shut the oven shut the oven turn the bagels I'll pop those there so you can have a quick look at them and I'll turn the blueberry ones wow production line and now I can get the blueberry ones in the oven and then once our last two blueberry bagels are boiled they'll all be in the oven and then we can have a look at these ones couple more minutes for those but let's get these off oh I think I can just about handle them we don't want to cool these on the tray we want to get them onto a rack and then these are our last ones to go in the oven that I did not put the timer on did I guess we're winging it a bit with these ones I'll just say 10 minutes I'll have a quick clean up I'll keep an eye on these blueberry muffins and then these plain ones that now have bagel seasoning on them just need about five minutes to cool and then we can cut them open I bet you're busting so my blueberry bagels have got about five minutes left and they look just as good as these ones that were plain and now they're not they look fantastic don't they did you get a chance to have a good look at them there you go I'll stack them all nice bakery style for you oh I thought they were tricking me I thought it was a nigella seed but it wasn't it was a black sesame seed question everything sometimes and look at these they look fantastic oh lost some foil now once you've removed your bagels from your tray just let them cool for five minutes before you cut them open like any bread they just need a chance to settle down before we dive in so I'll finish cleaning up my mess and then we'll cut these open and we'll check them out now how am I going with my apron pretty clean just that first smudge that I really don't know how I did it but still looks pretty good right pretty good for white surprised it hasn't got blueberry on it maybe that's blueberry I don't know what that is did you see that it even had a nice big pocket put things in there we've got some pretty talented people in our community I can tell you and cameo is one of them you can see I'm as proud as punch anyway I'll just leave these alone because I cannot wait to have one of these I think I'll have one for my lunch I've got my eye on that one with all the seeds on it some of the seeds fell off but okay so my bagels have been sitting here for I don't know how long that took me maybe 20 minutes let's cut one open and see if there's a difference between plain flour or bread flour being careful not to cut your hand well I made a mess of that didn't I and there's our bagel they're beautiful they're bready they're yum oh they're nice and soft but they're nice and dense hot now they are the perfect bagel now I'll cut one of these blueberry ones opened well you can't really see my little bagel hole it's sort of closed up a little bit I'll stick my finger in there for you but they look fantastic and they're a beautiful little bagel but it's lunchtime for me and I'm going for the savory one so if you haven't made bagels before this is a really simple recipe to follow this is a great little size cut in half slip them into the toaster and you put whatever you want on the top of your bagel but I think today I might just be going in for the cream cheese I just bit some of that bagel absolutely delicious you're going to love it I'm not even going to toast mine today I'm just going to eat it fresh but what I will say is things like this are getting so expensive now we made 10 bagels of both flavors what do you reckon it cost us two dollars two dollars fifty for 10 bagels I don't think you could even buy a bagel for two dollars fifty let alone 10 of them and these bagels freeze really well I will just stack those like you would buy them in a packet and just pop them in the freezer in a bag and this time of the year not only are bagels really good for breakfast but they're really good with your soups I love a bagel with my soup so if you haven't had soup and bagel give that one a go or with your stew anything that you want bread with try it with a bagel so I'll go and finish off my bagel but what I will say my most favorite thing to have on one of these bagels is cream cheese smoked salmon and capers if you haven't tried that combination together it's well worth trying if you like smoked salmon and even if you don't like capers give it a go so let me know how you go with your bagels and also let me know what you think of my apron and don't forget a big shout out to Cameo for making it so until next time take care everybody and I'll see you for the next recipe and I'll get these in the freezer so this is what I usually do I make my recipe and then at the end I do the intro so I'll stand here now with these things and say hi everybody welcome to my kitchen exactly look at what we're making today but I don't need to say it anymore because it's written all over me I don't think I'm going to take it off now before I go I just have to quickly tell you something the seasoning that I used on my plain bagels it's no good I do not recommend it I don't like to poo-poo a product but I just would not recommend the one that I used so usually when I make these I just put a little bit of rock salt maybe some pepper whatever I want but I don't usually put a store-bought bagel seasoning and I won't do it again the one that I used leaves this really bad aftertaste in your mouth I think it might be the garlic and it's just not good so I don't want you guys to make these beautiful bagels and then make the same mistake that I did and put a really awful seasoning on the top of them so I'm lucky that I taste everything and I tasted this before I made my lunch with it and it was horrible so I ended up having the blueberry one instead which was absolutely beautiful I'll see if I can dust all of the seasoning off the outside and save them but I don't think so I think I just might have to make another batch I think these ones might be going to the cows down the road sorry about that and if you know of a better seasoning than the one that I used you go ahead and let me know but in the meantime I'm sticking to my rock salt now before you all go and say oh how up yourself are you that you'd make an apron like that I didn't know how did I do that did you see me do that already how did I do that I didn't even see me do that