What’s that you say? MORE bread? Oh yes, friends. More bread.

This time: bagels. I had vaguely thought about making them in the past but then the Monday Morning Cooking Club’s And the Feast Goes On has a recipe and… well, it looked easy. For some reason I always thought bagels were hard! (This recipe is basically the same.) Maybe I was thinking of croissants…

Anyway, today I made them.

Making the dough is a cinch – it’s just a yeasted dough. I very smugly used my stand mixer, but kneading by hand would be perfectly doable. Leave to rise; divide into 12 and poke a hole in the middle and shape a bit; leave to rise again. I didn’t take a photo at this point because they looked a bit weedy, so I thought I’d failed on my first attempt.

Then the fun bit – boil for two minutes on each side, sprinkle with salt (or sesame seed if you like). And look! They puffed up beautifully!

Then bake. And look at those lovelies!

Some of them are clearly a bit small… I think next time I might be ultra geeky and actually weigh each portion rather than thinking I can just wing it. I know, I know. Whatever.

And the exciting thing I discovered? You can freeze bagels easily. Just split them first, then toast them…