New York Style Spelt Bagels

Remember, I promised bagels with the Neufchatel cheese?  Well here you go, a recipe for bagels. These are no ordinary bagels.  They are New York Style and are made with spelt.  What does New York style mean?  Here in New York, bagels are chewy and just a little crusty.  Do you like New York bagels?  We love bagels in my home, and the other day my friend Angela and I had bagels at Brooklyn Bagel.  I was excited to make bagels again.  The bagels were the right amount of chewy and just a little crispy on the outside, as they should be.  You can't buy bagels from a grocery store that will have those same characteristics.  This style bagel doesn't hold up to a long shelf life.  The New York bagel isn't just named for where it comes from, it is so much more.  If you aren't as blessed as I am to be in close proximity to amazing New York bagels, then this recipe will give you that opportunity.  I have made bagels before, and yes they are worth the effort and time.  Since I made the Neufchatel cheese, I wanted a bagel to spread it on.  These bagels are very yummy.  

Do you see the beautiful sponge inside that bagel?  The golden spelt?  Plus the white creamy goodness spread on top is delicious.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons Active Dry Yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons Cane Sugar (or white granulated sugar)
1 1/4 cups warm Water
2 cups Bread Flour
1 1/2 cups Spelt Flour (or Whole Wheat Flour)
1 teaspoon Vital Wheat Gluten
1 1/2 teaspoons Sea Salt

 Pour 1/2 cup water, yeast, sugar, and salt into mixing bowl.  Allow to foam for 5 minutes.

Look how happy the yeast is now?  I love happy yeast.  It validates my ability to bake. 

I killed yeast a lot when I was first learning to bake bread.

Add the rest of the water, flours, and vital wheat gluten.  Mix with a dough hook.
When a ball has formed increase speed to medium and knead for 10 minutes.

 Place dough in an oiled container with lid.  Allow to rest and double in size.

 Punch the dough.  Deflate its ego.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat.

I weighed my dough and figured out the weight and divided it by 32, but the recipe above
 makes 16 small bagels or 8 regular size bagels.  

Roll each dough piece into a snake, wrap the dough around your hand and roll the ends together under your palm on the counter.  I used a different method to shape my bagels,  making a ball then poking the center and creating a ring.  The first method will create a much smoother equal bagel.  

Preheat Oven to 425 Fahrenheit 

Boil the bagels for 1 minute on each side.  Remove with a slotted spoon to a parchment
paper lined cookie sheet or greased cookie sheet.

Bake bagels for 10 minutes, until golden brown.  

My family now has a lot of freshly made New York style bagels to enjoy.

Enjoy!

New York Style Spelt Bagels

Printable Recipe Found Here

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons Active Dry Yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons Cane Sugar (or white granulated sugar)
1 1/4 cups warm Water
2 cups Bread Flour
1 1/2 cups Spelt Flour (or Whole Wheat Flour)
1 teaspoon Vital Wheat Gluten
1 1/2 teaspoons Sea Salt

Process:

Pour 1/2 cup water, yeast, sugar, and salt into mixing bowl.  Allow to foam for 5 minutes.

Add the rest of the water, flours, and vital wheat gluten.  Mix with a dough hook.  When a ball has formed increase speed to medium and knead for 10 minutes.

Place dough in an oiled container with lid.  Allow to rest and double in size.

Punch the dough.  Deflate its ego.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat.

Weigh the dough and divide the weight by 8 for regular size bagels.  

Roll each dough piece into a snake, wrap the dough around your hand and roll the ends together under your palm on the counter, or make a ball then poke the center and create a ring.  The first method will create a much smoother equal bagel.  

Preheat Oven to 425 Fahrenheit 

Boil the bagels for 1 minute on each side.  Remove with a slotted spoon to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet or greased cookie sheet.

Bake bagels for 10 minutes, until golden brown.  

Enjoy!

Soft Pretzels

I think I am allowed to say that I'm a New Yorker.   A friend of mine (my daughter's Girl Scout troop leader), said I'm a New Yorker now.  As a New Yorker, I can say I am in love with soft pretzels.  Of course, as a California girl I was making them way before I ever came to New York.  My pretzel skills really amount to trying out different recipes and finding the perfect one and not straying from that recipe.   Actually, I did stray from it a tiny bit today, and I have no intention of going back.  This recipe is wonderful, except the pretzels get eaten so fast, and I only ate one.  You don't need New York water, or to be a monk, to make these (A monk created pretzels as both a lesson in how to pray and a treat for children to pray). 

 Soft delicious, salted pretzels.  I want one right now.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 1 1/2 cups warm water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons sea salt,
1 package active dry yeast, 22 ounces bread flour (about 4 1/2 cups), and 2 ounces melted
unsalted butter.

 Bloom yeast in warm water, sugar, and salt, about 5 minutes.

 Add flour and butter.

Mix with dough hook until it cleans bowl, about 4 to 5 minutes.

 Remove dough from bowl.   Oil bowl and put dough back.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in
warm place.  In my case my kitchen window is warm.  Let rest for 50-55 minutes or until
dough has doubled.  

Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit.

 I weighed my dough and separated it into 16 equal portions. 

 Pour 10 cups of water into deep sauce pan or any deep sided pan.  Add 2/3 cup Baking Soda
and turn burner to high.

 Roll dough using fingers, spreading your fingers as you roll.  DO NOT FLOUR YOUR
WORK SURFACE!  You need that dough to be a little sticky so you have traction to roll it
into a long rope.

 Make a U shape with the dough.

 Cross over, and...

 Bring the ends down to make a pretzel shape.

 Place rolled pretzels on parchment paper, ready to be boiled.

 Boil pretzels for 30 seconds and remove with slotted spoon back to parchment paper.

Place pretzels on parchment paper lined cookie sheets.  Combine 1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon
water in bowl.  With a pastry brush, brush egg wash onto the pretzels.  At this point, if you
want salted pretzels add it now.  I have the salt grinder from Costco, so I set it to the coarsest
setting and cranked that over our pretzels.

Bake pretzels in 450 Fahrenheit oven for 12 minutes.  Remove and let cool on wire rack.
I like my pretzels with mustard, but you can decide what you will serve yours with.

Enjoy!

Faux Grilled Pizza

Before living in Queens, my family lived in Southern California.  I am a native of Southern California, as are my children.  We had what many Easterners probably think is a typical backyard with a patio, grill, pool, and swing set.  We had a wonderful gas grill.   It was hooked up to a natural gas hub on the back of our house.  I loved my grill.   I did the grilling at my house.  When we moved here, I wanted grilled pizza, but my third floor apartment here in Queens doesn't really accommodate a grill.  I searched the internet and found a great alternative to grilling.  I used a cast iron griddle/grill pan and my oven broiler.  For this pizza test I also used Alton Brown's quick pizza dough specially made for grilling.  I had to change his recipe.   I know I do that a lot, but it was necessary, since my pantry didn't have what his recipe called for.  You will need bread flour, Kosher salt, instant yeast, Molasses, warm water, and olive oil.

Do you need to step up your pizza for Friday night pizza and a movie?

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 16 ounces bread flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast,
1 tablespoon Kosher Salt, 10 ounces warm water (warmed up in microwave for 20 seconds),
2 tablespoons Olive Oil, and 2 teaspoons Molasses.

 Mix salt, yeast, and flour in bowl of mixer with dough hook.

 Mix molasses, warm water, and olive oil, then pour into bowl with flour mixture.
Mix on low until combined then increase speed to medium and mix for 15 minutes.

 Remove dough from bowl.  Remove small piece and flatten in your hand and do the windowpane
test as in stretch dough and try to see through it, but if it tears, it doesn't pass the test.  The test
helps you to make sure the dough has good gluten structure and won't tear.  If the dough tears
as you flatten and stretch to see through the dough, mix with stand mixer and dough hook for a
 couple more minutes.  Stretch dough and form a ball, then place dough in oiled lidded container.
Allow to rest until doubled (about an hour). 

 Separate dough into six equal portions and roll into tight balls, place on parchment paper and cover with towel or plastic wrap.  Allow dough to rest for 45 minutes.

 Preheat cast iron griddle/grill on highest setting of stove top for 20 minutes.  Turn on exhaust fan,
open windows, or any thing to help circulate the air well.  After preheating, place in oven close to
top of oven and turn on broiler.  Place a wadded up piece of aluminum between oven door and
oven frame to prop door open slightly, this will keep the broiler from shutting off.

Stretch one of the dough balls on your knuckles or use a rolling pin.  Place dough on a
pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal or use an upside down cookie sheet.  The pizza should be
smaller than your cast iron griddle/grill, remember that. 

Slide pizza onto the cast iron griddle/grill and cook for 1 minute 35 seconds.  You read right, 

1 minute 35 seconds.  Isn't that awesome.   That means you can have pizza as quick as a brick

 oven pizza place can cook it.  I made four pizzas for my family very quickly.

Look at that beautiful pizza.   It was delicious too.

Enjoy!

Not Your Average White Bread

I have been making homemade bread for a couple of weeks, but when my WonderMill accidentally stopped working, I had to buy flour.  I decided to buy bread flour, white plain bread flour.  Of course, since I don't want to make white bread according to the directions, I changed it up a little.  I used Coconut Oil instead of butter, and loved the results.  To make this incredible easy bread you will need warm water, bread flour, instant yeast, coconut oil, sugar, and Kosher salt.

Can you smell that wonderful bread?  No, well then we should change that.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 3 cups lukewarm water, 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast, 1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt, 2 tablespoons sugar (I used honey in my first batch and recommend that
 over the sugar), 1/2 cup melted Coconut Oil, 7 cups bread flour.

 Add water (I microwave water for 30 seconds), yeast, salt, and sugar into stand mixer bowl.
Let foam and get happy.

 When the yeast is happy, drizzle in Coconut oil and flour.

 Mix with dough hook until the dough looks thoroughly combined.

 Rub Coconut Oil all over a large container (5 quart) that has a lid and put dough in container,
rubbing the sides to get oil on the dough.  Let dough rest for 2 hours with lid on, or until doubled.  If you have a cold counter, try using a heating pad under the container set to medium.

 This is dough that has grown up and is ready to move into bread pans, Woo Hoo!

 I have two 12 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pans.  If you have 9x4x3 pans, you have enough dough to make
three 1 1/2 lb. loaves.  This dough can keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. so if you have
one pan no worries.  I halved my dough and kneaded it with more flour to make it easier to handle
 and put it in two Coconut Oil greased loaf pans. 

 Let dough rest in pans for 40 minutes or until doubled.  When rested, sprinkle with flour and use a serrated knife to slash the top, also brush top with Coconut Oil.  

Twenty minutes into the dough rest period turn on the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  When dough is
done resting, pour 1 cup of hot water into an oven safe pan (broiler pan also works) on the bottom of your oven and place loaf pans in the middle of oven on rack.  Bake bread for 45 minutes.
Allow to cool on rack before slicing. 

Enjoy!

Ramen Noodles

We have a seventeen year old Chinese boy living with us while he attends high school.  He loves Ramen noodles.  I was buying Japanese Ramen noodles a lot until I decided to stop and find out if I could make them.  The good news is that you can.  I'm going to show you how.  Ramen noodles have three ingredients: bread flour, water, and Kansui. You will find Kansui (Koon Chun Potassium Carbonate & Sodium Bi-Carbonate) in an Asian specialty store.  The Kansui reacts with the flour causing it to both turn yellow and strengthen the protein to create that classic Ramen noodle.  Also on the plus side, these noodles were not fried and have no preservatives.  I made Ramen noodles for lunch, and our Chinese boy said they were the best noodles I have made.

Ramen noodles, not from an orange bag or white Styrofoam cup.  Do you want to make some?

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 300 grams bread flour (about 2 cups), 1/2 cup warm water,
1 Teaspoon Kansui

 Mix water and Kansui together and pour into flour in the bowl of a stand mixer.

 Mix with a dough hook for 10 minutes.  The dough will look like gravel, and that is okay.

 This dough isn't sticky.   Separate into two discs.  Run through pasta roller until you have
reached a number 3 setting.

 Roll sheets through spaghetti cutter roller.

 Voila, lots of Ramen noodles.  I doubled the recipe.

 Boil noodles in your choice of broth for 30 seconds.

Enjoy!