When most people hear the phrase “two-a-days,” I’m guessing that they think of high school sports teams practicing twice a day in the final stretch of the summer leading up to the start of school. I always figured that two-a-days were both out of necessity and to build endurance, and they always sounded a little painful. As horrible as I’m sure it was to have to practice twice on a steamy August day, at least it was only twice and not three times. Three-a-days can be brutal. What’s that? You’ve never heard of a three-a-day? I hadn’t either, actually, until I was studying abroad and my friends and I spent a long, crazy weekend in Barcelona.
Like two-a-days, three-a-days are an exercise in endurance and necessity, but of a slightly different sort. The three-a-day came to be when after a long night of chupitos (one aptly named “el muerto,” which promptly found its way to the gutter of a Barcelona street) and cervezas, my friend Kat and I made our way to a bagel shop that we’d spotted the day before. I ordered a bagel and either salad or soup, and Kat had her first three-a-day. She ordered three bagels, one for immediate consumption and two for the road, but before we stepped foot outside of the restaurant all three were gone. Not gone in a hold-onto-your-belongings-or-that-pickpocket-will-grab-them-when-you-turn-your-head way, but gone in an oh-my-god-Kat-just-housed-those-three-bagels way. In her defense, we hadn’t had a bagel for at least a month, and do you have any idea how hard it is to go that long without a bagel? And then to taste the forbidden fruit and have two more pieces staring back at you? It’s nearly impossible. And so the three-a-day was born.
Until this weekend I had never accomplished this great feat, but after a day of drinking for a good cause I woke up in serious need of a bagel. I texted Kat to let her know that today was my day, and I set out for my fix. I had intended on going to Common Roots, which makes the best bagels in town, but when their door was still locked at 8:05 I resorted to plan b: French Meadow. The sourdough bagel I picked up was decent, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the Common Roots bagels or those that I would make later in the afternoon.
I first made these bagels about a month ago with great success, and this time I altered the recipe slightly to incorporate some whole wheat flour, also with great success. I only replaced two of the nearly eight cups of bread flour with whole wheat flour, which was enough to make the bagels slightly heartier, but not so much that it compromised their integrity. If you didn’t know there was wheat flour in there, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell. You might say that I pulled a Jessica Seinfeld. At some point I might try upping the whole wheat to 3 cups, but I’m happy with this ratio for now. Or maybe I’ll try some rye flour and make pumpernickel bagels! I think my next project has been decided.
Wheat Bagels
Slightly adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, via The Fresh Loaf
For the sponge:
1 tsp instant yeast
4 cups bread flour
2 1/2 cups water
For the dough:
1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups bread flour
2 3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar
Plus:
2 tbsp baking soda
Toppings – I used sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic flakes, onion flakes, salt, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and chia seeds
Combine the 4 cups of bread flour and 1 tsp yeast in a large bowl – use the bowl of your stand mixer, if you have one.
Mix in the water, preferably with a wooden spoon whittled by your brother. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for two hours, or slightly longer. I was busy doing other things, and it wasn’t until about 3 1/2 hours later that I got back to bagel-making. I didn’t have any problems with the dough after the longer rising time, but I would still shoot for two hours.
After the first rise, sprinkle the remaining yeast on the sponge.
Stir in the yeast as best you can.
Then add the remaining flour, salt, and malt syrup/brown sugar/honey.
If you’re having trouble finding malt syrup, here’s what my jar looks like. I found it at Whole Foods and probably should have just used the honey or brown sugar that I already had, but I find it hard to turn down an excuse to go searching for a new ingredient.
Mix the dough by hand or with the dough hook of a stand mixer.
Once the dough has pretty much come together, transfer it to a floured surface or a silicone mat and knead it until it’s pretty smooth and all of the flour is incorporated, 5-10 minutes depending on how long you worked it with the dough hook.
The original recipe says it makes a dozen bagels that are about 4 1/2 ounces each, but when I started cutting up the mass of dough and weighing it out I ended up with a baker’s dozen of 4 1/2 ounce bagels plus a mini bagel. I would recommend weighing out the pieces so all of your bagels are uniformly sized, but next time I will weigh the mass of dough before cutting it up and then divide that total weight by 12 or 13. It’s not that ending up with 13 bagels plus a mini one is such a terrible thing; it’s just that I prefer uniformity when I take the time to weigh individual pieces of dough.
Enough with the math. Divide the dough into 12 or 13 (or 13 + a baby) pieces, roll each piece into a ball, and then cover them all with a damp towel for another 20 minute resting period.
WARNING: Gratuitous fat thumb photo. Now it’s time to make these bagels bagels. The easiest way is to use a couple of fingers or a fat thumb to poke a hole through the center of the dough and work it with your fingers to shape it into a bagel, trying to make it as uniform as possible.
Put the shaped bagels on a parchment-lined sheet pan, cover with plastic, and let rest for 20 minutes. At this point you can start preheating the oven to 500 degrees and bringing a large pot of water with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda to a boil.
When the water is boiling, drop two or three bagels in and boil for one minute. Flip them over and boil for another minute. Use a slotted spoon or spatula to transfer the bagels back to the sheet pan. You can dust the pan with cornmeal first, but it’s completely optional.
Immediately after removing the bagels from the boiling water, sprinkle them with toppings. I made six seeded ones with sunflower, sesame, flax, and chia seeds.
Six more were everything bagels with sesame, poppy, onion, and garlic. The 13th was a sesame, and the mini was a salt. I love salt bagels, but I limited myself to one because they don’t store well.
Bake at 500 degrees for 5 minutes, reduce the heat to 450, and bake for another 5 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.
Let them cool for at least a few minutes before slicing into them. Leftovers can be kept in a container at room temperature for a couple of days or frozen for a few months.
The mini salt bagel was my first victim. Salty bread topped with fresh quark is perfection.
A couple of hours later: an everything bagel with quark, tomatoes, and cucumbers.
For the record, when I texted Kat to tell her that it was a three bagel kind of day I was not actually planning on eating three bagels. Once I pulled two pans of steaming hot bagels out of the oven, though, the joke became less of a joke and more of a reality.
