Cinnamon and Vanilla Bagels

My latest kitchen adventure is bread, and I was utterly thrilled with how these bagels turned out.  They have that good, hearty carb kick, (we are heading into Winter after all) but practically no fat and very little sugar.  I'll be honest with you - these bagels were so good I considered keeping the recipe a family secret to be passed from generation to generation, but I've never been one to keep a good thing to myself, so here you go...


While these bagels may seem a little fiddly to make, they are well worth the effort, and I'll let you in on a little secret:  I made them during commercial breaks of The Vampire Diaries, so they can't be that taxing!

Ingredients*

• 7g dried yeast
• 4 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 500g of flour (I used organic plain, but I know others use Strong Bread for bagels)
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla pod

Makes 8 good sized bagels, or 6 monster bagels which are pretty much a meal in themselves.

Tip the yeast and 3 spoons of sugar into a large bowl.  Pour over 100ml of warm water and leave the mixture until it becomes frothy.  This usually takes about ten minutes.  After a few minutes you will see the yeast granules start to move and foam... I get quite enthralled by this!

Add another 200ml of warm water to the bowl, along with the salt, 1 spoon of cinnamon, 1 spoon of vanilla extract and about half of the flour.

Mix it all up and keep adding the rest of the flour gradually until you have a soft, but not too sticky dough.  I don't use an electric mixer or bread maker, and I tend to get my hands dirty at this stage to make sure there are no lumps.  If you have more high tech tools, you can probably get this dough done in a couple of ticks.

Knead the dough for about ten minutes until it is springy to the touch.   I was able to do this in the same big mixing bowl. (Yay for less washing up!)

Cover with a cloth and let the dough rise for an hour.  It should grow to about double the size.  (Sadly this happens too slowly for me to get excited watching it, so back to handsome immortal men I go.)

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees (C) and start a large pot of water boiling.

Now, this is where most people would tell you to prepare a flat surface, but I, again keen to reduce the washing up, prepared the bagels in the following way:

Cover a baking tray with greasproof paper. (You may need 2 trays to hold all the bagels)

Dusting with cinnamon gets the flavour right into the dough

Dust your hands with cinnamon (not flour!) and pull off 1/8th of the dough.  Form it into a ball and then poke the stick end of a wooden spoon through the middle.  Now, twirl the dough around the spoon to widen the hole.  (Imagine the stick of the spoon is your waist, and the dough is a hula hoop!)   I then turn the dough over and spin it the other way to create a nice rounded central hole.

Please your bagel dough on the baking sheet and repeat to create all of your bagels.

Next, you want to boil or steam your bagels for 2 minutes. I did this by boiling a large pot of water and adding them two at a time, then closing the lid.  This way, they boil on one side and steam on the other, cutting down the time needed by half.  Don't let the bagels touch or they may stick.  If you only have a small pot (or you have made those monster sized bagels like I did) you may need to do this one lonely bagel at a time.

I told you they were monsters!

Fish them out with a slotted spatula to drain the water and add them back to the tray with the baking paper.  By the time you've done all your bagels, the baking paper should have absorbed any excess water from the dough.  Toss the paper and lightly grease the tray(s) before popping them (with the bagels of course) in the oven.

In a small bowl, blend the butter with the remainder of the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.  Add a few drops of hot water to soften the sugar/butter.  You should have something like a runny paste.

Remove the bagels from the oven after fifteen minutes and turn them.  Glaze the tops by brushing over the paste mixture.  (If you have some paste left over you could even heat it slowly to make a caramel sauce, but I was opting for max flavour with min calories.)

Back in the oven the bagels go for another ten minutes.  Now they should be brown and sound hollow when you tap the bottom.  Be careful when handling them as the glaze can be very hot!

For the ultimate (and still healthy) indulgence, serve them still warm, halved with warm applesauce.  Bliss!

*Please note that most of my recipes follow my habit the traditional grandmother's measurements scale of  "a sprinkle", "a big pinch",  "this spoon heaped is roughly xx grams" and "just keep adding till it tastes right".  That said, I have tried to translate into more accurate amounts.  Just don't shout at me in the comments. ;)