bagels (part 4)

My student Yoshimi gave me a little tub of cream cheese at our lesson on Wednesday. (Thank you!) With my newly acquired cream cheese I wanted bagels for breakfast so after our lesson, I went to a bagel shop nearby, but to my disappointment, they were closed.

Since I couldn't buy bagels, I made bagels yesterday. I previously tried making bagels and have posted my adventures here, here and here. This time, the bagels came out great except for it sticking to the parchment paper that I had put them on while baking.

Here is the translated recipe if you'd like to try making them.

From "Bagel & Bagel Book 1" makes 4 bagels.

For bagels:
250g flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
15g sugar
140ml water

For kettling:
2 liters water
2 tablespoon honey

Bagels:
Add the flour and make a well. Add the rest of the dry ingredients into the well. Add the water (in winter, you may need to use warm water).
Knead the dough for 15 minutes.
Divide the dough into 4 (about 100g) pieces
Make into balls and let rest under a dampened cloth for 10 minutes
Get a pan that you can rest another pan into
Form your bagels by rolling them between your palms and the board--cylindrically. Form a ring and overlap the ends a bit and pinch to seal--it should look like a bagel.
Sprinkle some flour and put your finished bagels into the smaller pan and then fill the bigger pan with hot water (30-40C (86-104F)) and cover with a dampened towel for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes kettle bagels as follows.

Kettling:
Add honey to water, bring to a boil
Put bagels in and cook on each side for 1 minute.
Wipe off and place on a baking sheet.
Bake at 190C(375F) for 15 minutes.

Also in this book are recipes for different kinds of cream cheeses. I usually like to mix a jam like blueberry jam into cream cheese, but the two recipes that intrigued me were a bit different and Japanese-y: matcha & azuki.

Here are the recipes for each:
Matcha (green tea) cream cheese
55g cream cheese
5g honey
1/2 teaspoon matcha (green tea)powder

Azuki (adzuki bean) cream cheese
35g cream cheese
25g sweet azuki bean paste (smooth or chunky)

If your cream cheese is a bit stiff, leave it out for a couple of minutes before mixing. Mix each well and slather on your bagels!

NOTES: Since I was following this recipe given in the book and everything was listed by weight, I used a scale to measure everything out. I think I needed to dry the bagels better before putting them onto the parchment paper.

The honey mixed in with the cream cheese and green tea balance the bitterness from the green tea and tartness from the cream cheese. And the pre-sweetened azuki paste mixed in with the tart cream cheese are a great match. Both spreads are great on bagels and they aren't too sweet.