I like to eat bagels but I’ve never made any until today.

A friend bragged about making bagels on FaceBook. It didn’t sound too hard, so I thought I’d give it a try–before I run out of yeast.

I googled bagel recipes and finally found one at home in an old West Bend Automatic Bread & Dough Maker instruction book–this bread maker is long gone, but the recipes are still good.

Bagels — ingredients to make 8 bagels

1 cup warm water, 3 cups flour, 2 Tablespoon sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 tablespoons butter cut into 6 pieces; 2 teaspoons yeast.

I mixed these ingredients in my current bread machine as I would a loaf of bread on the dough setting. After it mixed and rose in the machine I continued with the recipe instructions.

Remove dough from pan, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and refrigerate 20 minutes.

Remove from refrigerator and place dough on a lightly floured surface. Divide into 8 equal pieces. Punch hole in the center, and form into a bagel shape.

Let rise in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to water. Reduce heat to a simmer and carefully add 2 to 3 bagels to the hot water. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes on each side (I was more successful with 1 minute simmer on each side, which was suggested in another recipe).

Drain and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes–times varied for me.

Mine did not all look lovely as the ones from the bakery, but were edible.

I shall try making bagels again, but may play with the recipe. I think splitting the dough into 16 pieces would be better.

If you have a good bagel recipe, please send it my way. You can email me at sunnybook@aol.com. (Also, if you know where I can get yeast, let me know. It’s like buying gold these days, if you can find it.)

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