foodie friday: not exactly panera...

but still edible. actually they turned out pretty good, even though they may not exactly look like store bought bagels.

i LOVE bagels. i could eat a bagel every day, especially with cream cheese. yum. but i have never even thought to make them. after cindy's comment about making bagels with her bread machine, i was inspired to give it a try. i just went with the basic bagel dough recipe that came with my bread machine. it called for 3 cups of flour and i used 2 cups of whole wheat and 1 cup of bread flour. the mix turned out well, though my dough was really stretchy and hard to work with. maybe not enough flour in the rolling/shaping process. i will probably experiment with some other recipes as well.

apparently with bagels you have to drop them in boiling water right before you bake them. i don't really know what it does, but i was kind of nervous considering that mine were not overly bagel-ey at this point and it was basically like dropping a blob of dough into the water. but it really helped! after they came out of the water, i was able to easily place a little hole in the middle and it helped them keep their shape a little bit better. i sprinkled some brown sugar and cinnamon on the top and popped them in the oven. the brown sugar didn't fare too well after i turned them over (maybe next time i won't do that) and looked kind of burnt on the final product, but they tasted really good straight out of the oven with some cream cheese.

i can definitely see myself making more bagels. they definitely taste better than store bought. i will be able to make up a couple of batches and then freeze them. plus i can try different add-ins and toppings.

i'd still love to have a panera bread closer than 80 miles away, but at least now i'll have some yummy bagels for in the meantime.