Dining with the Bloggers - April 6th.

A long, LONG time ago, when she hadn't even started her blog, Moira was so kind as to offer me, via e-mail, a copy of her recipe for bagels. She claimed they were the best homemade bagels in the entire WORLD! And you know what? I think she's right!

This weeks theme is lunch or as I liked to put it, lunchbox - I have to bring lunch on an almost daily basis to school, and started a little project on finding the best bagel in the world a couple of months ago, that then proceeded to die right then and there. So naturally, when I saw Moira had posted about the bagels over at Who Wants Seconds? there was no escaping it anymore - I had to try them. Moira's a real kidder - I mean seriously, she had me thinking "Oh no, she's gone amuck, I mean one thing is originality, but this? This is plain - um... EUIW!" Also, her pictures are to die for!

I was a little startled to find out that I needed an entire packet of fresh yeast (50 g) for the 3½ cups of flour, after having used the site Moira's included in her post. It seemed like a lot to me, but I think it's actually pretty standard - I just usually cut down on the yeast in my breads, I hate it when all you can taste to a loaf or roll is yeast. Let me say straight up, these DO NOT taste yeasty at all when done! And they were dead easy to do - I dumped water, sugar, salt and flour in my Kitchen Aid, left it for 10 minutes, came back and found a smooth, silky dough. A little rise, shaping them (the easiest method EVER - all the recipes I've seen so far having you making little logs then pinching the ends of those together - they almost always split when you boil them) boiling, baking.

And as for the texture and taste. They seem a little more airy than other bagels I've encountered (I should probably at this stage tell you that Bagels in Denmark are either out of the frozen section at the supermarket or from a take-out shop - I think the take-out shop's ones are pretty authentic, but I've never had the real deal in NY, so don't lynch me if I'm all wrong here!:-)) Anyways - appearances are deceiving, they are chewy, slightly sweet and "gummy" (weird word - I mean it in the nicest way!) The boyfriend, who isn't usually a bagel-lover even popped one in his mouth as soon as he saw them and declared them "MMMMMMMMMMMM - mheyr chewy - mice staste" - that was about all he could say, what with his mouth full and all. I had one, just plain with nice butter - they're a definite keeper!

Cathy's packed a sensible lunch for you too...