A Great Day in Baking History

It was an incredible day for baking today! History was made! I have created my most epic baking achievement yet!

BEHOLD!!

BAGELS!!

It all started with an intense craving for bagels I had one day. But when I went to the store and looked at the bagel selection I was really disappointed. Everything I found had such high sugar, sodium and preservatives, the worst offenders were Thomas bagels, basically my college breakfast constant. Great for a college student on a budget because they would last for weeks on end, not so great for the recent food aware micro-farmer.

I had recently been gifted a Kitchen Aid mixer (basically my dream kitchen appliance since I was old enough to see over the counter) from my magnificent fairy Godmother and I could not wait to use it. I also had in my vast collection of cook books Kamran Siddiqi’s baking cookbook Hand Made Baking. It is one of, if not the best baking cookbooks I own. A large reason behind that is not just the recipes but the way the book is laid out. It’s binding lays flat (hello-why doesn’t every cookbook have this???), it’s pages are thick and tough (yet still I manage to get flour all over them) and there are clear pictures of the how-to process.

Now, because I followed his recipe word for word I am not going to publish it, copyright reasons and more, I will urge you to yet again buy his book because like I said, it’s amazing. There is a link to the original recipe of his online here, but it is not the recipe I used. He updated it for the cookbook.

Of course I went big and made three batches of bagels, the first one whole wheat, the second cinnamon raisin and third blueberry. I froze most, ate only a quarter of one (each flavor) and did several happy dances in between. What I love is the fact that I know every ingredient, there is only five! The basic bagel recipe calls for water, yeast, sugar, salt and flour. That’s it! Freezing is my preservative, no chemicals, no words I can’t pronounce. So simple, so yummy and actually really fun to make. Like I have mentioned before, I am not the best baker, so the fact that these came out edible and not so scary looking is pretty incredible to me!