How to Shape a Bagel – Part II

I’ve written before of my love of bagels and how I make them twice a month so I always have some to eat when I want one. I have my favorite Bagel Recipe posted on the blog if you want to see how I make them.
Shaping them was always the tricky part as sometimes they would come unsealed and I’l have wonky looking bagels. I really didn’t care as they still tasted good. Thanks to my local paper, The Missoulian, I now have a new way to shape bagels and they come out looking much nicer.

My former method involved rolling the dough into a strip and then turning the strip into a round. It made bagels that looked like this when they were baked:

you can see that some edges are not perfectly clean and stick up at the side. This is where they came apart either while boiling or baking.

The new method is totally different. Watch:

If you cannot see the video you can watch it on YouTube HERE

The first time I made them this way it did take me a little bit longer but now I just fly as I make them. I use a fondue fork to poke through the middle. Hey, whatever works, right?

I first shape the dough into the rounds. Then I poke the holes through the center and widen them.

I line them up on the cookie sheets for boiling.

They do grow a bit after their bath.

And as you can see these do look a lot better after they have been baked. Much neater. I’m just thrilled to have found this method. The bagels now look as good as they taste.

If you are interested in trying here just click HERE for my bagel recipe.