Bagels from scratch!

I made bagels the other day. From scratch. No mean feat, anyone will tell you that, especially when one has not much experience with bagels or baking. But my first batch turned out well. Very well, in fact.

They're relatively easy to make. Or rather, relatively easy to put together. The ingredients are pretty straightforward; I found a few recipes on the 'net and tweaked them to my convenience. It's the shaping them into bagels that's the complicated part. Lots - and I mean lots! - of patience required as you wait for the dough to rise, over and over. Plenty of time to watch some reruns on the telly. Or if you prefer, brew yourself a cuppa and contemplate the changing of the seasons (we have only two here, hot summer and wet monsoon).

The first batch of bagels came out perfect. Pretty little circles of doughy, yeasty baked-brown goodness. The generous sprinklings of black and white sesame seeds made me smile. The second batch, not so much. I was impatient and didn't wait as long for the dough to rest and rise, and I was careless when it came to making the holes, so the bagels were more oval than round. Harder to chew too, but the taste was good, if not better than the first batch (I tweaked more and was even more generous with certain ingredients).

They were so good, I'm intending to whip them up again, sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later, but for good homemade bagels, it's worth the wait.

Cheers y'all, and here's to plenty of fresh bagels in the near future!