Cooking and a Confidence

Image of flatten bagels off the Internet. Actually for some people these are not failed bagels but are called “flagels”. These are not Sherry’s Bagels.

The timer on my. oven pierced the kitchen with a series of high pitch beeps. I pulled open the oven door to see large flat golden brown discs lined up like miniature frisbees on my baking tray. These did not look like my normal bagels. What did I do wrong?

Proofed too long before refrigeration?

Too much water?

Dead yeast?

Over boiled?

Bad karma?

I pulled this image off the internet as it resembles the bagels coming out of my refrigerator.

I restarted a new batch of bagels. I measured carefully and double checked my kneading time and the texture of the dough. It seemed to be pliable. I let it proof…for less time. When I checked after 20 minutes I found the dough to have risen but not doubled (check yes to this) and when I touched it there was a sunken indentation. Over proofed? But it had only been 20 minutes?

I went ahead and shaped 8 bagels and slid the tray into a refrigerator. The next morning, the bagels had doubled in size on both trays. They were touching each other like the best of friends. I had to use my fine surgical skills to pry away the joint membranes of bagels clinging to one another.

And then came the boiling process. As i lifted each bagel, I found them sticking to my finger tips and taking on new shapes and crevices as each hit the water. They puffed out and then they collapsed. Hoping against all odds that the heat would reactivate the yeast, I found a final bagel that had delicious flavor but still much flatter than I typically bake.

What had the changed? I know that I had received a brand new 50 pound bag of flour and my gut told me it was the flour. But the two flat batches snatched away my confidence and I sought help from the Bakers Hotline at the King Arthur Baking Company. I use their flour.

Person number one said my water is too warm. I lowered the water temperature. The bagels still came out flat. Actually some batches blew up like balloons when activated by the heat in the oven,

I called back the hotline. Person number two told me I had too much water, most likely due to the change in weather. I reminded them I was in the Bay Area and it really wasn’t that more humid than the week before. I didn’t argue further and I reduced the water. Bagels were a bit better in structure so the issue of moisture moved to the forefront of this crisis. But was it really climate change?

With the multiple testing of many variables, my confidence was now in tatters. Week after week I make bagels. I always have some variation in my bagel shapes, after all, they are made by hand, not machine.

I placed my last call to the hotline. I spoke with person number three. She came full circle as I described my efforts. She told me that most likely the moisture had penetrated the bag of flour making the entire bag inconsistent.

To put the flour moisture theory to the test I acquired another 50 pound bag of the same flour. I decided to use my tried and true recipe. I didn’t reduce the water, I didn’t even reduce the water temperature. The next morning Sherry’s Bagels returned. Crisp crust, chewy texture, full and flavorful- no more hockey puck and no more second guessing myself.

Sherry’s Bagels