Upgrade your breakfast with these warming cinnamon bagels. With a classic deep-brown crust and a gloriously chewy texture, once you've mastered them it will be hard to go back to shop-bought.
Serve warm slathered in butter, or at room temperature with a healthy spreading of cream cheese.
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Yields:
8
Prep Time:
45 mins
Cook Time:
25 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 10 mins
Ingredients
300g
strong white flour
7g
sachet fast-action dried yeast
2tsp.
ground cinnamon
3Tbsp.
malt extract, see GH TIP
1Tbsp.
bicarbonate of soda
Oil, to grease
Directions
Step 1In a freestanding mixer fitted with a dough hook mix the flour, yeast, cinnamon and 1tsp fine salt. In a jug mix 1tbsp malt extract with 200ml tepid water. Pour into the flour bowl and knead for 5min, or until smooth and elastic. Cover bowl and leave to rise in a warm place for 1hr, or until doubled in size.
Step 2Line 2 large baking sheets with lightly greased baking parchment, oil-side up. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces (weigh for best results), shaping each piece into a ball. Working with 1 ball at a time, poke a hole in the middle using your index finger, then poke your other index finger through the hole from other side and roll your fingers around each other to gradually make the hole larger. Repeat with remaining dough balls, spacing apart on the baking sheets. Cover with greased clingfilm (oil-side down). Leave to rise again in a warm place for 20min, or until visibly puffed.
Step 3Preheat oven to 220°C (200°C fan) mark 7. For the poaching liquid, bring a large pan of water to the boil and stir in the remaining 2tbsp malt extract. Reduce to a gentle simmer and whisk in the bicarbonate of soda (it will foam up initially, keep whisking until it subsides). Working in batches, gently add bagels to pan. Cook for 1min, then flip using a slotted spoon and cook for another min. Transfer back to the lined sheets and repeat poaching remaining bagels. When all the bagels are poached, bake in the oven for 17-20min, or until deep golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before enjoying.
GH TIPS
What does the malt extract do?
Malt extract helps give the bagels their signature golden colour and chew, you can buy malt extract from health food shops.
Can I make the bagels in advance?
Make bagels up to 2 days ahead, store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Why are the bagels cooked in water before baking?
Poaching the raw bagels gives them their characteristic toothsome chew and shiny appearance. When the starches meet the water, they burst and form a gel which sets. This then hardens in the oven to give that pleasantly leathery exterior. Adding bicarbonate of soda to the water helps with this (professional bakers use lye, but it's not ideal for a home kitchen), and some recipes use honey instead, which helps improve the colour too.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
Alice Shields is Senior Cookery Writer for Good Housekeeping. A trained pastry chef, you’ll find her food styling on photo shoots, developing delicious recipes and writing about all things food. She loves to bake and her favourite pudding will always be a chocolate fondant. Originally hailing from Lancashire, she finally achieved her goal of getting a butter pie recipe into the magazine.
