Bagels

Bagel, Bugel, Beugal, Beigel

I don't know where bagels originated from. Fact is, at least three countries are vying for bragging rights as creator of the bagel. One story tells of a baker making bagels as a present for his king, and the bread was shaped like a stirrup because the king loved riding horses. In another story, bagels were given to women while they were giving birth (how this went in the ancient times should be interesting to know. I could not imagine giving birth with a bagel in my mouth!)

As I was growing up, the bagel was one of those breads that you would not find in the local panaderia or sari-sari store. It is only with the entry of specialty bread shops in the last decade or so that the bagel has found its way to the common Pinoy household.

I could not let Easter break pass without trying another bread recipe. Here is what I found:

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp white sugar
6 cups All Purpose flour
4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 quarts water
1 tbsp molasses or honey
olive oil
sesame seeds, onion flakes, poppy seeds

Procedure

Soften yeast in warm water with one tablespoon sugar. (five to ten minutes)

Add salt and sugar to yeast mixture.

Add six cups of flour and knead until dough comes off the side of the bowl. If using Kitchen Aid mixer, use with dough hook and put on low setting for about three to five minutes.

Take out dough and roll into a ball. Put in greased bowl and let rise in warm place (again, overnight in fridge preferred) until double in bulk.

Punch out air from dough and roll into two logs. Cut each log into ten parts.

Boil three quarts of water. Add molasses/honey to water. Heat oven to 375F.

Roll each piece of dough into a rope and form like a doughnut. Place in well-greased baking sheet. Let rise for about half an hour. (I used a dough cutter.)

Drop dough into boiling water and boil for thirty seconds on each side. Remove dough from water and drain on another baking sheet.

Sprinkle with sesame seed, onion flakes, or poppy seeds while tops are still moist.

Transfer to original baking sheet (greased) and bake in oven for about 25 minutes.

Take out the cream cheese and enjoy.

Notes:

• Next time, I would probably lower the temp to 350F and extend the cooking time to evenly brown the inner portion of the bagels.
• I used the olive oil to grease the baking sheets.
• As with most recipes, I doubled this recipe.

One website mentioned that the bagel is the only bread that is boiled and then baked. Not true. My son reminded me, while the bagels were being boiled, that we followed the same procedure when we made pretzels.

Floss buns

These are good lunch sack mainstays. I would have to put the picture later because I have not uploaded them onto the computer.

Dough:

5-6 cups flour

4 tsp. yeast

1 cup milk

1 cup water

1/3 cup + 1 tsp. sugar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp. salt

Warm milk until heated through, do not boil. Add water to milk and let rest for five minutes. Add a teaspoon sugar and yeast to milk-water mixture and proof for five to ten minutes. With a hand beater, add oil, salt, and sugar to mixture until well combined. Add flour and using a stand mixer (with dough hook attachment), knead until dough comes off the side of the bowl (This would probably take around five minutes on low setting.) Take dough and put in a well-greased bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least eight hours (or until doubled.) Punch down dough. Divide dough in two. Roll each half into logs and divide each log into 16 rolls.

Filling:

2 lbs. pork or chicken

4 cloves garlic

1 medium-sized onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 medium-sized carrot, diced

light/dark soy sauce

sugar

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp. oil

Put garlic, onion, celery, carrots, and meat in a pot with enough water to cover meat. Cook until meat is tender. Set aside the meat. Pass the broth through a cheesecloth and set aside. Loosen the meat into shreds by hand or by pulling them apart with a couple of forks. Season the shredded meat with soy sauce, sugar, salt and pepper, according to your taste. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Heat oil in a nonstick pan (medium heat), tilting pan so that oil covers the whole pan. Fry seasoned meat with about a quarter cup of reserved broth. Press on the meat so that shreds of meat will further break down into smaller threads. When liquid has evaporated, lower the stove setting to medium low. Stir constantly until meat has dried and broken down into very small fine threads (resembling carpet threads. This would take about forty-five minutes to an hour.)

Note: chicken meat breaks down faster than pork and requires less cooking time

You don't really need to put in the celery and carrots (mirepoix? I'd stick in a bay leaf but some people catch the scent and think it smells funny) while tenderizing the meat, however, it's not bad to have homemade broth handy (and, why waste perfectly good broth?)

To assemble:

Take a piece of dough and roll. Flatten and put a spoonful of filling. Gather sides of dough and seal by pinching. Place on a cookie sheet (sealed side down.) Make sure there is over an inch of space between each roll. Let rest for half an hour and bake in a preheated oven at 400F for about twelve minutes.

If these don't disappear fast enough, you can put them in ziplock bags and stick them in the freezer.

Valentine Bake Sale Cookies

For the past three years, one class has been holding a bake sale as part of a poverty project to benefit the Salesian missions. We had fun doing our little share.

The cookie recipe is courtesy of the Ambitious Cook. The sugar frosting I used is from allrecipes.com.

The French Bread Chronicles

French Bread (Attempt No. 2)

I will not post Attempt No. 1 here as it is not really worth the space. Attempt No. 2 is really Attempt No. 1 minus one cup of flour plus one tablespoon of olive oil.

My children love French Bread. This is the main reason I am intent to learn how to make a fairly decent French Bread. After reading a number of articles on the history of the bread and how-to tips, I have realized that with a little bit of ingenuity, making French Bread is not quite such an impossible task.

Ingredients:

5 cups of flour

2 cups luke warm water

2 packets active dry yeast

1. 5 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp. olive oil

Procedure:

Basic dough making. Refer to pan de sal procedure.

After dough has risen and doubled, punch down and divide into two (or three). Flatten, roll, and pinch seams. Set on baking sheets sprinkled with corn meal (seam down.) Let rise until doubled. Make diagonal cuts on the bread after the second rising. You may opt to brush with a combination of egg white and water.

When dough has almost doubled, pre-heat oven to 450F. Set a pan of water on bottom of oven. This is essential in getting that crusty exterior.

Bake for fifteen minutes or until done (bread should sound hollow when tapped.) I would recommend spraying the oven with fine mist of water every three minutes until done.

Notes:

1. I would probably add a quarter cup flour next time as it was difficult to handle the dough even though it had already developed gluten from kneading. I would not go over six cups flour with this recipe since that was the amount of flour used for Attempt No. 1 which produced a very dense and bland bread.

2. Make sure that slashes on the bread are made after doubling.

3. The recipe above produced a chewy center with a crusty and nutty exterior.