Bagels

If there's been an onslaught of Jewish recipes around here, it's no coincidence.  September hits, and I inevitably become homesick for the dishes that remind me of fall, the dishes that ring in the new year.  There are many wonderful things about the Bay Area, but the availability of quality Jewish food is not one of them (neither is 90 degree weather in the fall).

Bagels are probably the worst offender of Jewish foods butchered in the Bay Area.  Heck, even as a proud Bostonian, I am willing to concede that a bagel is only really a bagel in New York.  A bagel in not fluffy.  It's chewy and dense.  It has a complex flavor, brought upon by a long rise and malt syrup.  And they only come in a finite set of flavors; there is no such thing as a blueberry bagel. 

As Yom Kippur arrives, all I want is a good bagel to break fast.  And knowing that I wouldn't find one in Berkeley, I set about making my own.  It's a lot of work, and it takes a long time, but the payoff is immense.  It's probably the kind of thing that isn't worth making at home if you happen to live blocks from decent bagels, but when you are 3000 miles from one - well, you'll be glad you made the effort.

Bagels
Makes a dozen

It's best to read this recipe from start to finish before beginning.  There are a lot of steps, and it's a two day process.  I've added notes that I found helpful, but feel free to play around and see what works for you.



For the sponge:
1 t yeast
4 c high-gluten flour (I just used regular flour, and I am sure I would have even better bagels with the high-gluten stuff; I will be ordering some for next time)
2 1/2 c water, room temperature

For the dough:
1/2 t yeast
3 3/4 c  high-gluten flour
2 3/4 t salt
1 T malt syrup (you can substitute honey or brown sugar if you can't find any, but this is what gives them that bagel flavor, so give it your best shot

For the bath:
1 T baking soda
1 T malt syrup

As toppings:
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, kosher salt, rehydrated dried minced garlic or onions (optional)

Day one:

Stir  yeast into  flour in large mixing bowl.  Add the water, whisking or stirring only until it forms a smooth, sticky batter.  Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for approximately 2 hours, or until the mixture becomes very foamy and bubbly.

In the same mixing bowl, add the additional yeast to the sponge and stir.  Then add 3 cups of the flour and all of the salt and malt.  Stir until the ingredients form a ball, slowly working in the remaining 3/4 cup flour to stiffen the dough.

Knead for at least 10 minutes.  The dough should be firm but still pliable and smooth.  If the dough seems to dry, add a few drops of water and continue kneading.  If the dough seems tacky or sticky, add more flour to achieve the stiffness required. The kneaded dough should feel satiny and pliable but not be tacky.

Immediately divide the dough into 4 1/2 ounce pieces.  Form the pieces into rolls.

Cover the rolls with a damp towel and allow them to rest for approximately 20 minutes.  Line two baking pans with  parchment and mist lightly with oil.  Poke a hole in a ball of bagel dough and gently rotate your thumb around the inside of the hole to widen it to approximately 2 1/2 inches in diameter. The dough should be as evenly stretched as possible (try to avoid thick and thin spots.)

Place each of the shaped pieces 2 inches apart on the pans.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let the pans sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

Check to see if the bagels are ready to be retarded in the refrigerator by using the float test. Fill a small bowl with cool water.   The bagels are ready to be retarded when they float within 10 seconds of being dropped into the water.  Take one bagel and test it.  If it floats, immediately return the tester bagel to the pan, pat it dry, cover the pan, and place it in the refrigerator overnight.  If the bagel does not float, return it to the pan and continue to proof the dough at room temperature, checking back every 10 to 20 minutes or so until a tester floats. 

Day two:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with the two racks set in the middle of the oven.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add the baking soda and malt syrup.  Have a slotted spoon nearby.

Remove bagels from the refrigerator and gently drop them into the water, boiling only as many as comfortably fit. After two minutes, flip them over rand boil for another two minutes. 

If you want to top the bagels, do so as soon as they come out of the water.  You can use any of the suggestions in the ingredients list or a combination.  I just made plain for now.

When all the bagels have been boiled, place the pans on the middle shelves in the oven.  Bake for approximately 5 minutes, then rotate the pans, switching shelves and giving the pans a 180-degree rotation.  After the rotation, lower the oven setting to 450 degrees and continue baking for about 5 minutes, or until the bagels turn light golden brown.

Remove the pans from the oven and let the bagels cool on a rack for 15 minutes or longer before serving.

Fig-stuffed Challah

A new year is upon us, as mentioned in the last post.  It's hard not to reflect on the last year when entering a new one.  I have to say, it's been pretty good.  I married a very wonderful woman.  I opened a cafe.  I lost a terrible job but immediately found a good one, which then lead to an excellent one.  I feel blessed, but I want this coming year to be even sweeter.

On Tuesday, we read the story of Sarah and Isaac - the story of a woman blessed with a child at such an advanced age that she laughs.  But it's also the story of Hagar, a woman cast out into the desert to perish with her son.  It's a painful story, one of two women and their sons, all bound together by the patriarch Abraham.

At the beginning of the story, Sarah is blessed with a son.  But as quickly as one woman is blessed, another may be scorned, and Hagar, finding herself dying of thirst in the desert, places her son in the shrubs so that she might not see him perish.  But God remembers Hagar, just as God remembered Sarah, and she and her son are given water to drink.  Even more astonishingly, God promises that Hagar's son will father a nation.  From despair comes hope; in the desert rises a covenant.

We are all Sarah and some point, and we are all Hagar at others.  We feel blessed and forgotten, we hope and we despair, we pray and we are heard.  We soldier on, and sometimes we bake figs into our bread just for the heck of it.

Fig-stuffed Challah
Makes one loaf

For the bread:
2 1/4 t active dry yeast
1/4 c plus 1 t honey
1/3 c olive oil
2 eggs
2 t kosher salt
4 c flour

For the filling:
1 c chopped figs
zest of one orange
1/4 c orange juice
salt and pepper

1 egg

Whisk yeast and one teaspoon honey into 2/3 cup warm water.  Once foamy, add remaining honey, olive oil,  and eggs, and mix well.  Add salt and flour, and mix until dough holds together.  Knead by hand or in a standing mixer for about five minutes.  Coat bowl with a little olive oil, cover with towel, and let rise for an hour.

In small saucepan, combine figs, zest, juice, and a little salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, and cook, storring occasionally  about 10 minutes.  Let cool.  If there is lots of liquid left, strain some out so that figs are mostly dry.  Blend in food processor until you have a paste.

Once dough has risen for an hour, turn it out onto a floured surface, and divide in half.  Roll first half into a rectangle, and spread half of the fig filling evenly over the dough.  Roll dough into a long log, and stretch as long as possible.  Divide into two logs.  Repeat with the second half of the dough and filling.

Arrange two ropes of dough perpendicular to two other ropes, joining in a tic-tac-toe fashion in the middle, woven together where they meat.  You have eight ropes coming out from the center, with four ropes coming from underneath and the other four over the others.  Take the underneath ones and move to their right, jumping the next rope over.  Then take the ones you didn't move and jump to the left.  Tuck anything hanging out under the whole loaf, and form a round.

Place loaf on a greased baking sheet.  Let rise for another hour, and preheat oven to 375 in the last 15 minutes.

Beat the egg and brush over the top of the loaf.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Consume immediately, and if you don't manage to finish the whole thing, make unto fresh toast tomorrow.

Honey Cake

It's dark when I wake up now.  The chain coffee joints have pushed their pumpkin line up to center stage.  The campus has swelled with students, making going to the gym, riding public transportation, and walking down the sidewalk just that much harder.  It's hard to deny it's fall.

The most sure sign of fall for me, though, is two days spent at synagogue, hearing the shofar sound, dipping apples in honey, and ringing in a new year.  In high school, I though the end of such things could not come soon enough.  As soon as I was able to make the choice for myself, I was not going to sit through those long, boring services.  Then I became an adult, and I couldn't bring myself to pass through September without acknowledging the holiday.  I craved the comfort of tradition.  Now, I willingly sit in a full sanctuary and cloak myself in the sounds of ancient words, letting familiar melodies roll over and through me.  The sound of the shofar calls me home.

 Even if services didn't do it for me, it was impossible not to get excited for my mother's honey cake.  We ring in the new year with sweet flavors to ensure a sweet new year.  Honey is the sweetener of choice, reminiscent of Israel, a land flowing with milk and honey.  We dip our apples, our challah, our fingers into it, and we bake it into these sweet cakes.  This cake brings meaning to the words "so sweet your teeth hurt".  With a whopping three cups of sweetener - honey, white sugar, and brown sugar - we're not taking any chances about the outcome of next year.  But it's also so good you can't stop at just one slice.

 

Honey Cake
Makes 2 loaf cakes

3 1/2 c flour
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
6 t cinnamon
1 t ground cloves
1 t ground allspice
1 c vegetable oil
1 c honey
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
3 egs
1 c strong tea
1/2 c orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two loaf pans.  You can also use a cake pan or square baking dish, but watch your baking times.

Whisk dry ingredients (flour through allspice) together.  Make a well in the middle, and add everything else.  Add your oil before your honey, so that the honey won't stick to the measuring cup.

Whisk everything together into a thick batter.  Split evenly between the two pans.  Place on a baking sheet (to properly bake the bottom of the cake faster than the top and middle), and bake in the oven until cake tests done.  This took me about an hour, but check from 45 minutes on.

Pro tip: Toast a slice of the cake the next morning, and slather with butter, cream cheese, or peanut butter (or drizzle with even more honey if you're feeling crazy).