BAGELS!

I'm sure all of you have noticed the change in appearance of my blog.  Now that I finally have photos of Spain, I felt that it needed a makeover.  So voila, now you have a picture of the famous fountain in my town, Priego de Cordoba.  While I love the Eiffel Tower, it needed to go.

This week, my desperation for bagels reached new heights.... I decided to make them.  Homemade.

Preparation for this endeavor started on Monday where I actively searched the internet for the BEST bagel recipes.  I then selected one and figured out what I needed to purchase from the food store. The most important ingredient was the yeast.  The most difficult ingredient to find in Priego... the yeast.  Yeast translates to "levadura."  So when I got to the grocery store, I asked one of the workers where the "levadura" was.  He told me there were two kinds and asked which one I was looking for.  I panicked not knowing the difference between the two and choose the first option he offered me.  He directed me towards a section with boxes of "levadura en polvo."  I was looking for "active dry yeast" so these boxes seemed like the I chose correctly; it was dry leveadura.  I browsed the two options I had.  One box was in both english and spanish-- baking soda, levadura en polvo.  The other box was only in spanish-- levadura en polvo.  Now, I know baking soda is not the same as yeast, but I decided to ignore the english box and go with the spanish one since it did contain the word "levadura" in its name.  I purchased it and headed home.  On my walk I started having anxiety over my purchase.  What if I brought the wrong thing and in actuality it was baking soda and totally ruined my bagels.  I texted my mother because of course all mothers are supposed to know these things.  However, I forgot her knowledge of baked goods does not really extend past the boxed brownie variety (sorry mom.)  So I went back to the internet and discovered...

Bagel Blunder #1: I had indeed purchased baking soda.
Which, if anyone is wondering, will not replace yeast.  Meh.  

That night I returned back to the grocery store, avoided the original man I asked (I didn't want him thinking I had a yeast obsession), and asked a lady worker where to find the "levadura."  Like the man, she offered me the two options, and this time I chose the second.  She led me to the refrigerated butter section where hidden between stacks of butter were tiny cubes of levadura.  I chose one and returned home.  

Finally Friday rolled around, the big bagel day.  (Lots of alliteration going on with this post!)  I reviewed my bagel recipe once again.  My anxiety soon returned when I looked at the yeast I purchased and saw that it was called "levadura fresca."  Back to the internet I went to see if it was the same as "active dry yeast."

Bagel Blunder #2: Levadura Fresca or Fresh Yeast is not the same as Active Dry Yeast.  
GAH.  HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF YEASTS ARE THERE?!

Eventually I stumbled across a baking website that told me I could substitute Fresh Yeast for Active Dry Yeast as long as I knew the conversion formula.  I found the conversion formula which simply involved multiplying the amount of dry yeast the recipe called for by three.  I went back to my recipe to see how much dry yeast I needed...

Bagel Blunder #3: My recipe used the American Measurement System instead of the Metric System used by Europe.  

What felt like a million hours of math formulas later, I finally figured out how many teaspoons and tablespoons are in a gram.  And then did the yeast conversion and discovered my cube (25g) of fresh yeast was the perfect amount.  Now, with my yeast anxiety gone, I went back to the recipe to get out all of my ingredients.  Then this happened...

Bagel Blunder #4: Normal Flour (aka all purpose flour) is not the same as Bread Flour.  

Back to the grocery store I went.  It was probably naive of me to think that all flour is the same.  With my new bag of bread flour in hand, I headed back to the apartment.  FINALLY, I had all of my ingredients and could begin bagel making.  The first step was to get a half cup of warm water ready for the yeast.  Measuring cup... measuring cup... hm....

Bagel Blunder #5: I forgot that measuring cups or spoons don't exist here.  

But don't worry.  Nothing was going to stop me from completing this task.  I grabbed my coffee cup and filled it to what I think was the halfway point.  I added some sugar and the yeast and let that sit to the side.  Next, I mixed my bread flour and salt together in a large bowl hoping my measurements were accurate.  After letting the yeast sit for five minutes, I poured it into the bowl of flour and then added another 1/2 cup of warm water before mixing.  The recipe called for a hand mixer.  Lacking a hand mixer, I went the old fashioned route and kneaded the mixture together to form dough.

Bagel Blunder #6: I don't actually know what "kneading" is.  And by the time I had everything mixed and was ready to "knead" my hands were too messy to go back to researching on the internet so I made up my own version of "kneading."

Something must have worked because within ten minutes I had a giant ball of dough.  The recipe said it should take about 20 minutes for this whole process.  So either I have magic fingers or I totally messed up....fingers crossed it wasn't the latter.

Because I had extra time on my hands and sometimes I like to act like I'm 10 years old, I decided to be a pizza chef and try throwing the dough up into the air like in the movies...

Bagel Blunder #7: Being the coordinated person that I am, my giant ball of dough landed on the floor.  Whoops.

You would think I would learn after dropping my homemade pumpkin pie on the floor back in November... I brushed off my dough and decided to go back to being Kelly the bagel chef.  I lightly greased my giant bowl and put my dough in it.  I covered it with a damp cloth and placed it on the floor of my room in front of the space heater.  (The recipe said to keep it in a warm place.)

1 HOUR LATER

I checked on my dough.  It had risen... yay!  I gave it a giant punch in the middle (really fun surprisingly), and let it sit for another 10 minutes.  

I retrieved the dough from my room and brought it back to the kitchen where I separated it into eight small balls.  I then dipped my finger in flour and poked it into the middle of each ball.  I was surprised to see how easily that little trick helped form the holes in the bagels.  I had assumed that that part would be tricky considering the dough was very elastic.  But the flour kept the holes from closing up.  8 bagels later, a preheating over, and a pot of boiling water, I was ready to boil these babies.  I took my slotted spoon and dipped three bagels into the boiling water.  I timed it for two minutes then flipped them over onto the other side for another two minutes.  After all eight bagels were boiled, I returned them to the cookie sheet and popped them into the oven for 20 minutes.

Finally the moment had arrived.  I removed the bagels from the oven, cut one open, slathered on some cream cheese (I even splurged and bought the more expensive Philadelphia brand), and took a bite!

Bagel Blunder #8: You should wait at least 10 minutes before attempting to eat a bagel fresh out of the oven.

It was similiar to eating a cookie right after it comes out of the oven.  It was SUPER hot.  Too hot to even taste it.  With a cup of cold juice in hand to soothe my mouth, I returned to my bagel.  

The Verdict: my bagels were actually, surprisingly good.  They weren't the best in the entire world.  But they tasted like a bagel.  I was pleasantly surprised.  And after devouring the first, I helped myself to a second bagel.  I'm currently in carb-overload.

  

I give it less than a week before the rest of the bagels are gone.  The whole process probably took about three hours.  The majority of the time was spent waiting around for the dough to rise.  I would definitly make them again and maybe experiment with some toppings.  Some recipes called for mixing honey into the flour;  I might try that too to see what kind of affect it has on the taste.
 

My future bagel store also featuring Baseros coming to a city NEAR YOU!       

No, but seriously, I've always wanted to open up a bagel store.  I can't give away the secret that will make my bagels different from the others.  But I know the idea is genius.  And throw in Braseros as an added bonus, who wouldn't want to eat there!

You can find the bagel recipe HERE