Cute, cuter, mini bagels
January 18th, 2007

If your online browsing habits take you frequently to cuteoverload.com you’ll quickly notice that for the cuteness factor the same rules seem to always apply. Among many others, it’s size. Anything tiny there will make me go “ahhhh look at that” and then “I want one…”, same thing happened when I spotted the recipe for these mini bagels

Mini Bagels

I am a big bagel fan and have become an even bigger one during my visits to the US, but I also have two big issues with bagels:

FIRSTLY: In 99% of all my past bagel-encounters I found a whole bagel to be simply too much for me. The sheer mass of it, as well as lacking variety in taste. Having eaten the first half of it, the whole thing starts to get “old”. Across the board I hate to just stick with a single flavor for the duration of a meal, same here, there are so many wonderful spreads out there, it’s virtually impossible to appease my cravings by choosing one single flavor to go with two bagel halves.

Mini Bagels

Generally, if available, I always opt for the smallest portion of a snack, which makes it easier to indulge in the many flavors and tastes. ‘Love to sample without making commitments, so to speak. Voilà, this is where the mini bagels come into play. Three to four big bites and they are history, allowing to taste different spreads and toppings without being completely stuffed.

Mini Bagels

SECONDLY: The hole. Ok, ok, I won’t blame the bagels for their holes, but certainly inapt staff at bagel shops for doing a poor job trying to turn the bagel into a well dressed, good looking and especially, edible – technically edible – bagel. I’ve had so many that after the second bite automatically morphed into a “run over” kind of style, with the cream cheese spread all over the place making the bagel a complete mess to eat.

Mini Bagels

While this might be taking it too far, the mini bagel with the smaller hole – unless you go crazy with the filling – is a so much nicer snack. They can be true all-rounders and are definitely a worthy candidate for my next party event!

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl and make a little depression in the middle. Then pour water and olive oil into the depression and sprinkle dry yeast on top. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for about 5-10 minutes.

Either use your kitchen machine or knead by hand until the dough becomes smooth, shiny and elastic. Add some more flour if it feels too sticky. Again, let the covered bowl rest at a warm place for about 60-90 minutes (size of dough should have doubled by then).

Preheat oven to 200 °C (392 °F). Punch down the dough, and shape about 16 to 20 equally sized little balls. Now comes the fun part: You can either use your index finger (poke it in flour first) or the handle of a wooden spoon to create a hole in the middle and try to give each bagel a nice look. Be sure to make the holes a notch larger than you’d think is necessary, they tend to quickly close up as the bagels rise and bake.

Heat up a pot of saltwater and bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer. Send bagels into the hot water for about a minute (they’ll float on top) and remove with a skimmer. Imagine wrinkled fingers after a long hot bath – yep, that’s what they look like now.

Note: You could now brush some egg yolk over the bagels to give them a darker (and more yellow-ish) color. We tried with a few and found the original color to be much nicer looking.

Preserves overdose

Sprinkle with sesame, poppy seeds or other seeds/spices of your choice and bake in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Once cooled down a bit you can serve right then and there, but they also taste phenomenal the next morning, straight from the toaster with cream cheese and jam. Home-made jam of course :) Throughout last year, my family went a little overboard preserving jams and jellies (and other) – this is what we got just this Christmas… Sour cherries and blood orange are my new favorites – so far.

Mini Bagels

Recipe source: Fingerfood (Eric Treuille & Victoria Blashford-Snell), p. 121, adapted

Prep time: 30min., rising time: ~90min., baking: 10-15min.

.

Ingredients (yields 16-20 mini bagels):

250g white flour (I used type 405)

1 tsp salt

165ml lukewarm water

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp dry yeast

poppy seeds, sesame seeds etc.

Comments
Kat

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Dia

Jan 18th,
2007

eva

Jan 18th,
2007

Maria

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Carola

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Helga

Jan 18th,
2007

Caroline

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

Zembla

Jan 18th,
2007

Jan 18th,
2007

sue

Jan 19th,
2007

Isa

Jan 19th,
2007

Molly

Jan 19th,
2007

Jan 19th,
2007

Feh

Jan 19th,
2007

Hannes

Jan 19th,
2007

Cathy

Jan 19th,
2007

Jan 19th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 20th,
2007

Jan 21st,
2007

Jan 21st,
2007

Jan 21st,
2007

Jan 21st,
2007

aby

Jan 22nd,
2007

Jan 22nd,
2007

Jan 22nd,
2007

sarah

Jan 23rd,
2007

Mireille

Jan 23rd,
2007

Jan 23rd,
2007

Jan 23rd,
2007

Jan 23rd,
2007

Lou

Jan 24th,
2007

Fer

Jan 24th,
2007

Jan 24th,
2007

Maaike

Jan 24th,
2007

Jan 31st,
2007

Feb 1st,
2007

Kalanda

Feb 1st,
2007

Feb 1st,
2007

Feb 1st,
2007

Feb 7th,
2007

Feb 9th,
2007

Feb 21st,
2007

Jen

Feb 27th,
2007

Feb 27th,
2007

Feb 28th,
2007

Sarah Meil

Mar 13th,
2007

Sep 22nd,
2007

Oct 5th,
2007

Bella

Nov 16th,
2007

Bella

Nov 16th,
2007

Nov 16th,
2007

court

Feb 7th,
2008

Sini

Mar 3rd,
2008

Apr 30th,
2008

Sep 7th,
2008

May 16th,
2009

Jun 13th,
2009

Aug 28th,
2009

Sep 20th,
2009

Daphne

Dec 3rd,
2009

Julie

Jun 11th,
2010

Jul 22nd,
2010

Aug 17th,
2010

Rachel

Nov 14th,
2010

Sini

Nov 28th,
2010

Sini

Dec 2nd,
2010

Dec 3rd,
2010

Coton

Mar 17th,
2011

Sabrina

Mar 18th,
2011

May 5th,
2011

May 12th,
2011