A while ago, I promised you videos. A bit of footage here and there, to demonstrate shaping and the use of certain tools. My gooseneck tripod was too wobbly and required a lot of fumbling with the phone for overhead videos, and the DSLR’s tripod is no good for overhead shots, so I ordered a tripod with a telescope arm for the phone. Yesterday afternoon it finally got here. It’s heavy and sturdy and comes with a tablet holder on the base so I can actually see straight ahead what the phone-camera overhead is recording and I can also remote control it from there. Everything worked great, I went through different tests yesterday and thought “okay, let’s make some bagel dough, then I can shoot the first shaping videos tomorrow”.

That was the plan. It failed. Spectacularly!

I made the bagel dough, stashed it in the fridge for an overnight rise so I had fresh bagels in time for breakfast, and went to bed.
Early this morning, I got the nicely puffed up dough out of the fridge, set up the phone tripod/stand thing and started to record the shaping. Easy peasy. Until I checked the footage while I waited for the water bath to heat up…

I should have checked the camera app’s settings properly this morning, because it doesn’t show everything on the home screen. You have to actually get into the framerate settings to see and decide between “normal” and “timelapse”. Now guess what I tested last yesterday and what mode was still set.

Long story short: instead of making of photos, there’s an accidental timelapse video at the end, where you can see me shaping bagels at breakneck speed 🙈 Not that you’d learn anything from it.

I grabbed the recipe for the bagels from the King Arthur Flour homepage and messed only a tiny little bit with it so I could use lievito madre instead of yeast.

• 160g lievito madre
• 400g all purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp non-diastatic malt powder
• 290g water

Mix and knead until the dough passes the windowpane test. Then decide on either a counter rise which takes 2-3 hours, or place the dough immediately in the fridge, where it can rise overnight.

Divide the dough into 8 more or less equally sized pieces and pre-shape them into balls and let them rest for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 220°C / 480F and prepare your waterbath in a flat, wide pot/pan.

• 2 liters water
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp non-diastatic malt powder

Once it’s boiling, shape your bagels and cook them in the waterbath for a minute, then flip them over and cook for another minute. If possible, fit more than just one into the pot. Fish them out of the waterbath with a slotted spoon and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Let your bagels cool on a rack and enjoy them. I love mine with chunky peanut butter, banana, and a tiny drizzle of honey or date syrup.