[https://www.cbc.ca/life/greatcanadianbakingshow/recipe-montreal-bagels-1.5051491]
Every few weeks I take the time to make some bagels. Since I'm from Montreal, I am required by law to prefer our bagels over any other bagels, especially from New York!
When I was 16, I worked as a cashier at Fairmount Bagels, which is one of the oldest bagel places in Montreal. Every shift, on my break, I practically forced them to teach me the proper rolling technique. It's not so easy and takes a bit of practice. You need to roll out from the center to the edges and make sure you seal the two ends together properly.
The recipe from CBC (above) is great, but there are a few very important problems with it:
- When kneading the dough, try not to add any additional flour. It will create a dryer dough.
- 75g per bagel creates pretty small bagels. I found 100g a better size.
- DO NOT let the bagels rest for 30 minutes before boiling them in honey water. They will continue to rise and then when you put them in the water, they will deflate, creating bagel disks, instead of nice, round, fluffy bagels. 10-15 minutes is just fine.
Bake them at the hottest temperature your oven can handle:
Enjoy!
