- [Producer] Hey Claire?
- Claire's not on the show anymore.
- No, I'm good.
Let me just send this text.
- She's taking this one off.
This is just gonna be me.
Claire, take a break.
Go get a coffee, for like three days.
- Yeah.
- I'll do this.
You're good.
- Wait, hold on.
But now I want to text them.
- They'll be the worst Bagel Bites ever.
[upbeat jazzy music]
- So keep going.
[Claire yelping]
[clattering]
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Something weird happened.
My knee feels weird.
All I did was stand.
Hey everyone, I'm Claire.
We're in the BA Test Kitchen,
and today I am making
gourmet Bagel Bites.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I ate a lot of Bagel Bites
as a middle schooler.
My sister and I would put
the tray in the microwave
and go watch Saved by the
Bell, or whatever was on TV.
The idea of just a pizza bagel in general
is something that feels really
like a thing you would make as a kid.
So I don't know.
Do I like the idea of a pizza bagel?
I have extensive bagel education,
both in eating and making.
Okay.
Let's, oh.
Sorry.
We could only get a couple flavors,
cheese and pepperoni, three cheese,
they look pretty good on the box.
Mini bagels with mozzarella,
cheddar, Monterey jack cheeses.
I'm cool with three
cheeses, I just don't want
those to be the three on a pizza.
I'm gonna look at cheese and pepperoni,
because this is the kind
that I would eat as a kid.
Wow, they haven't changed much.
This is what they look like.
They come on this crisping tray.
Like, these bagels are
kind of sad looking.
They're not, I mean, I don't even know
if you can really call them bagels.
They are very pale,
topped with sauce and cheese
and little pepperoni bits.
Nine in a pack, which I remember well.
I feel like I used to eat
maybe not all nine, but a lot of them.
Okay.
I'll microwave it.
1100 watts, for two minutes
20 seconds on high power.
It's like, who knows how many watts
anyone's ever microwaving at.
All right.
Should I put these in the oven too?
[upbeat jazzy music]
This was a snack where you would
burn the roof of your mouth
so bad if you didn't let them cool,
which we never did.
Some way I remember.
They did not lose all their
toppings onto the tray,
which is an improvement.
- That one's sliding off.
- That one a little did.
Like that one has a lot of sauce, cheese,
more pepperoni, no pepperoni, dripping.
- [Rhoda] Pretty chewy.
Not a very good bagel.
- No, definitely.
It's so soft and doughy.
It's a terrible bagel.
We did bake some just as an
alternative heating method.
At least in the oven, the
pepperoni and the cheese
got a little bit of color.
The bagel gets better in the oven.
- It's a little better.
I think maybe you should freeze.
- Okay.
- But oven's probably gonna be best.
- Yeah.
- You know?
- A bagel's a very
specific thing, you know?
Oh, you went all in one.
Good for you.
- It's not good.
- I know, it's not good, and yet--
[Alex chuckles]
It's kind of good.
You know, like--
- And I do want more.
[chuckling]
- So that's part of the criteria.
Must be able to pick up
the tray with the Bite.
- I don't think so.
- I wish there was a little bit more
texture to the sauce.
- [Claire] It's like a puree.
- Puree.
- [Claire] Are they
exactly how you remember?
- It's so much worse than I remember.
- [Claire] Really?
- It's almost like it's
freeze-dried dough.
- Like, it's so spongy and dense.
- [Dan] You guys don't know anything.
[laughing]
I will not let you sit here and slander--
- Do you guys love them?
I mean, I like--
- Care for another one?
- I really like the idea of a Bagel Bite.
- [Cameraman] Dan's eaten like four today.
- Yeah.
- Like, it seems
like a great thing.
- Dan was quite excited about this.
So maybe I'll do three
cheese plus pepperoni.
- Should there be like
a custom Claire flavor?
- Oh yeah, so I wanted to do like
I think of it as sort of a 90's thing,
because that was when I ate it last.
You know, like Domino's veggie pizza?
- [Alex] Oh yeah.
- With kind of raw onion.
- Raw onion.
- And black sliced olives.
- Bell peppers.
Yes.
- From a can.
I want to compose it so there's one single
teeny-tiny slice of mushroom,
and maybe like the tiniest
floret of raw broccoli.
- Yeah. [laughing]
- [Claire] I can put it on
with tweezers, or something.
- So my favorite pizza
is really embarrassing,
but it's mushroom, olive, and pineapple.
[Claire gasps]
- Ooh!
- Can you make a tiny Bagel Bite?
- If we can get some pineapple.
- I have pineapple at home.
- I'll make it for you.
- I'll bring some pineapple.
- Wait, I kind of like the idea,
what if I took everyone's pizza order?
Everyone gets their own flavor.
I like this idea.
Gaby, what's your favorite
kind of pizza toppings?
- In Argentina they
like ham and pineapple.
[laughing]
- Oh, all right.
Sohla, remind me.
It was pineapple, mushroom, and what?
- Black olive.
- Oh black olive, nice.
- I love black olives on pizza.
- Oh my god.
- So good.
- [Claire] Yeah.
- I don't mind a little onion.
- [Claire] Okay.
- I love a good mushroom pie.
- [Claire] Okay.
- Mortadella, anchovy's
not bad when they're good.
- Do you want all of those
things on your pizza?
- No, these are all separate pizzas.
- Oh no, I mean what's
your one pizza order?
- I don't, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Then I do half and half.
Mixed mushroom on half,
and then the other half
[beeping] olives.
Maybe mixed olive.
- Sopressata, basil,
some extra Parm on top,
and some chile oil.
- Okay, thank you.
Noted.
- Chile, it's gotta have chile heat,
whether it's dry or fresh.
- Calabrian?
- Calabrian's great.
- Okay.
- Anchovy, baked.
- [Claire] Okay.
- On the thing.
- Okay.
- Swimming.
Very thin slices of garlic.
- Good sort of style.
- Oh yeah, Polly's gotta shave the garlic
with a razor blade.
- Right.
All right.
- Time-consuming, but
a very good technique.
- Molly, what are you putting on pizza?
- Roni!
Dat roni life.
If I'm a nice pizza place,
mortadella because I know
they got the good stuff.
- Yeah.
- If I'm at a slice
shop, pepperoni for sure.
- Okay, well I'm gonna go with mortadella
because I'm probably already
making a group pepperoni one.
You'll get to try it anyway.
- Okay.
Are you making all red sauce?
Because I can see the mortadella
being a good white pie.
- Okay.
- Like a ricotta, mozzarella.
- Ooh.
- Like garlic.
- Okay.
- [Molly] Maybe some castelvetrano olive.
- Oh my god.
- [Molly] And Parm.
- [Dan] Frankly I'd
like to see a white clam
and lemon Bagel Bites.
- Frankly?
There's something disgusting about that.
- All right, Dan gets to be on this list?
Clam pie.
- You've got a lot of
work to do, girlfriend.
- I think the only tricky
part is going to be
about done-ness of the bagel,
and then the rest of it is gonna be
just easy and fun.
The only thing I'm trying
to recreate with Bagel Bites
is the dimensions and overall size.
All I have to do is measure
the circumference of the bagel,
and then that's all.
Two inches.
All right.
Two inch bagel, that's all.
Yeah, the diameter.
What did I say?
Circumference?
I meant diameter.
There's no reason why
the cheese needs to be
in tiny cubes like that,
because they all melt anyway.
They're supposed to look like this.
So I wanna go for a proper bagel.
Good color, crust development,
and also little tiny blisters
so you get that really
satisfying crunchy texture
when you bite in.
This doesn't have any of that.
Overall, I'm just gonna
try to make a good bagel.
Time for my favorite part,
reading the ingredients.
Bagel halves.
Parenthesis, wheat flour, water,
contains less than two
percent of the following,
invert cane syrup, yeast,
salt, soybean oil, enzyme,
ascorbic acid, niacin, reduced iron,
thiamine, mononitrate,
riboflavin, folic acid.
Then topping, parenthesis
cheese blend, bracket,
part-skim mozzarella cheese,
parenthesis cultured
part-skim milk, salt, enzymes,
closed parenthesis, modified
food starch, skim milk,
closed bracket, pepperoni
made with pork and chicken,
bracket, pork, mechanically
separated chicken.
So we are seeing the reappearance
of mechanically separated chicken.
AKA, pink slime.
Salt, contains two percent or
less of pork stock, spices,
dextrose, lactic acid starter culture,
oleoresin of paprika,
flavoring, sodium ascorbate,
sodium nitrate, BHA, BHT, citric acid,
closed bracket, closed parenthesis.
Sauce, parenthesis water, tomato paste,
invert cane syrup, modified food starch,
salt, methyl cellulose, citric
acid, potassium chloride,
ammonium chloride, spice, yeast extract,
natural flavor, calcium
lactate, closed parenthesis,
water, invert cane syrup.
I mean, it's a little bit
of a pointless exercise
because I'm not going based
on any of the ingredients
used in here.
It's still a good exercise, though.
I don't know that I really
need to see how these are made,
but we'll go to the computer anyway
and do some research and
just see what we can find.
Wonder if they boil the bagels, though.
I'd be very surprised if they did.
- [Announcer] Now you can feel
good about giving them pizza
whenever they want!
♪ Pizza in the morning ♪
♪ Pizza in the evening ♪
♪ Pizza at suppertime ♪
♪ When pizza's on a bagel
you can eat pizza anytime ♪
- It just occurred to me
that they really are trying
to market it as breakfast.
Because it's a bagel.
Today is really about the
dough and the bagel itself.
It is a yeasted product,
so it's a little bit of a
process, of letting it rise,
and then with bagels
you have to boil them.
For this episode, I'm
actually going to use
a different baker's bagel
recipe, and that baker
is Peter Reinhart, who's a
very well-known master baker,
author of many bread cookbooks.
All the other toppings
and stuff I'll do later,
like tomorrow, or I don't know.
It's, I got it.
[upbeat jazzy music]
All right, I'm gonna grab my ingredients.
454 grams of unbleached bread flour,
kosher salt directly with the flour,
two tablespoons of water
to proof the yeast.
Just wanna do that to make
sure the yeast is alive.
It usually is.
I will let that sit until I start to see
the mixture foam a bit.
Also, bagels come from an eastern-European
baking tradition, and
they have a malty flavor,
and that comes from barley malt syrup.
It is similar in flavor to molasses.
Look at how thready it is.
It's really, really thick,
and it really needs a lot of agitating
to get it to dissolve,
and it goes both in the dough
and in the liquid used
for boiling the bagels.
So bread making, even
though it's a lot of steps,
it's easy.
You just dump everything together and mix.
So now I'm gonna start kneading by hand.
Sorry, get rid of my
gross hair rubber band.
So now I have a dough
that is not at all sticky.
It's firm but still soft,
so I'm gonna leave this here covered
and let it rise, maybe
around an hour or so.
What?
An hour.
[laughing]
- [Dan] There's nothing else?
[Chris laughing]
- Nope, just gonna walk away.
- Yeah.
All right, I was told I
have to make the sauce now.
Tomato paste.
What?
Olive oil, garlic, canned tomato,
a pinch of red pepper
flakes, and some basil.
Cook everything on the stove
and then let it concentrate
and slowly kind of roast
and dry out in the oven
for an hour.
Let's look at this dough.
I would say that that doubled.
You can see when I poke it
that this dough is proofed.
Now, we're gonna move
into the forming stage
and make the bagels
into their round shape,
but first I'm gonna pull the tomato sauce
out of the oven.
Oh my god, it's perfect.
There's no liquid,
it's all just tomato solids.
Looks very good.
I'm gonna let this cool
and then I'll puree it.
Before I start dividing this,
I'm gonna prep my baking sheets
and grab some cornmeal for dusting.
So I'm going to form pretty close
to two inch circles with the dough.
I'm just not sure what weight of dough.
So I'm gonna try doing 1 1/4 ounces.
1.25.
So I'm thinking that the
best way to form these
is to form them as a snake
and wrap it around a
finger and roll over it
into a loop where the ends meet to seal
with a very small hole,
because they will rise a bit
and that hole will kind of close up.
Cute little bagel.
They're a little bigger, but oh well.
Think that'll do.
I'm going to go ahead
and portion all the dough
and then I'll start
forming them one by one
in a little bit of an assembly line.
Whoa, I'm getting real good.
- [Dan] Have you ever had
a tuna melt on a bagel?
- [Claire] A tuna melt on a bagel?
- [Dan] Are you into it?
- Wait, what?
Dan.
What nonsense is this?
I like a tuna melt on sliced bread.
- What?
- Tuna melt.
- Oh, I love--
- Abomination.
- Oh.
- Whoa.
- I love a tuna melt.
- Me too.
- Abomination.
- Oh my god.
- You don't like a tuna melt?
- Does that really stun you?
- I love a tuna melt.
- Canned fish--
- With American cheese?
- Chris is not allowed to participate
in this debate then.
What is the bread you
want for a tuna melt?
- Something like this.
- Sliced bread.
- Yes.
- Not a bagel.
- That's not,
not a bagel!
That's too much going on.
- Yeah.
I would guess we have
20 or so mini bagels,
therefore around 40 Bagel
Bites we'll be able to make.
Look pretty good.
To chill these overnight,
I'll just go oil side down
overtop of the bagels
so then they don't dry out, a wet towel,
and then another sheet tray overtop
to make sure it's sealed.
I think it was Andy
who said that he wanted
a little more texture in the sauce.
[clattering]
Oops.
[yelps]
Oops.
So food mill will smooth everything out
and break it down without
making it a puree.
So it just forces the
mixture through the disc
with these holes in it.
It's actually upside down.
All right.
Oh shoot.
So you can see what's left is the flesh.
Okay.
This just goes into a pint container
and into the fridge.
We'll use it when we assemble everything.
But when I come in
tomorrow, I'm gonna focus on
cooking the bagels.
I'm excited to play with the toppings
and to make them look really cute.
But it's a lot of toppings,
I mean that part's
gonna be kind of a lot of work.
Mushrooms for Brad,
Dan needs his clam pie.
Cut little tiny handkerchief
mortadella for Molly.
It's a lot.
You know what?
I'll get all the
ingredients ready for people
and everyone can assemble their own.
Yeah, pizza party.
I think it'll be more fun.
I'm covered in cornmeal.
It's just getting worse.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Look at Andy's pore-less skin.
Truly incredible.
He really looks like that in person, too.
This is in the January issue.
He looks so great.
Andy, how do you like your pizza?
You should frame it.
- My mom will.
- Yeah.
He loves it.
Put it right there.
I got a little excited
this morning when I woke up
because I remembered that
I get to come into work
and make bagels.
So that's gonna be my first step today
is boiling and baking the bagels.
So these have been resting overnight.
They did expand a little
bit from the yeast
because there's little tiny bubbles,
so that's a good sign.
My guess is these are
gonna pass the float test.
They look like little
mini bagels, don't they?
So I'm gonna take this guy.
So the bagels floats,
which means there's air
in the dough, so the bagels
won't turn out overly dense.
That means these guys are ready to cook.
I'm gonna turn that on.
There's a two-step cooking
process for bagels.
First, you boil it in a solution of water
and enough barley malt
syrup to get the color
of strong black tea, couple tablespoons.
And then you bake them.
So now I'm gonna preheat the oven.
Well, maybe 450.
I don't have a baking stone at home
so when I make bagels, I
don't bother with this stuff
and I just do it on a sheet tray,
but it's just a raw piece of porous stone.
It absorbs some moisture and gives you
a really crisp bottom.
I don't know, I just
know it helps the bread.
I need my cornmeal
just to prevent sticking.
I love baking projects
that you do overnight
and then bake the next morning
because it's such an exciting
reason to get out of bed.
That's true.
These boil about 30 seconds a side,
and then these just all go in.
Look at how cute they are.
All right, so it's been about 30 seconds
so I'll flip them all over.
You can see that they've
taken on the darker color.
[timer beeping]
Now these go into the
ice bath to cool off.
They feel good.
They feel like bagels.
The holes have kind of tightened up.
Okay, so they're twice the size
of a regular Bagel Bite, but that's okay.
I always think how much I
wish Bagel Bites were bigger.
[upbeat jazzy music]
All right, we're all right.
Get in there.
Okay.
[timer beeping]
[upbeat jazzy music]
We think they're done.
Look at how cute they are.
You can see that they
didn't get much bigger.
Oh, mother [beeping]
I just touched the thing.
I'm fine.
It's just a light burn.
All right, so here's the bagels.
This guys had a little blister.
That's okay.
Oh my god, this one too.
Ow.
And this one too,
which is just really strange.
I've never had that
happen before with bagels,
but overall, they look
really, really, really good.
Ow.
All right, I'm gonna go
over here and take a photo
because they're so cute.
I just wanna point out
a sign of a well-made bagel
is that it has all these little tiny
crunchy air pockets.
What if we do--
- They seem a little hard.
- They do seem a little hard.
- Okay, I'm gonna go
over here with my bagels.
Do you know what a crusty bagel?
- It feels like it's all crust,
I'm just saying.
Don't hate me.
- But like, if you're gonna do
that and then cook it again.
- I don't feel good about that criticism,
and I don't appreciate it.
Chris just doesn't get
a pizza bagel anymore.
[laughing]
Sorry, Chris.
- [Alex] It is really good.
- [Chris] Oh, that's delightful.
- [Alex] But--
- [Chris] It's gonna be baked to death
- [Alex] Do you want pizza on top of this?
- A lot of texture.
- It needs to taste like less,
I think.
- Like less what?
- It can't be this crusty.
- It's so good with cream cheese.
Should we just eat these for breakfast?
- The only problem they're having
is that it's too good,
but that's a great problem to have.
- It is, yeah.
- I think you can
comfortably just move on.
- Yeah, but the problem with that
is then I gotta do something again.
- If you just did the same exact thing
and frankly baked them a little bit less,
you might just be there.
- Almost like half-baked I
feel like these need to be.
- [Chris] Yeah.
- [Claire] Damn it.
- So maybe I was right in the first place.
[Claire sighs]
- All I did was make bagels,
because that's what I know how to do.
I just really like bagels.
And I really like making bagels.
- [Dan] This might be
one of the best bagels
I've ever had.
- Thank you.
So, okay fine.
I guess what I'm hearing is
I have to make the dough again
and try another time.
If I was, well.
[groans] Okay.
I promise I'm gonna make more dough.
But first, I'm really into the idea
of making tuna melts.
So now I'm making snacks.
I need this.
It's making me feel like
this is still for a reason
and these bagels, we're
still gonna enjoy them.
Plus it's just more fun to do this
than it is to make the dough again.
I love, love, love
bread and butter pickles.
It's a little QP, whole grain mustard,
couple dashes of hot sauce
and lemon juice.
Okay, now in go.
Delicious.
- Forget the Bagel Bites!
We're going with freaking
tuna melts on mini bagels.
I love it.
- You wanna eat a mini?
- I will eat one of these for sure.
I'm starving.
I haven't eaten anything all day.
- Good.
My god, your timing is good.
- Oh my god, Andy.
You're on another level.
- That wasn't me.
Someone--
[Brad laughing]
- You've got great skin.
Look at your teeth.
I haven't had white teeth like that
since I was four years old.
- Well, I'm sure the photo people
did some stuff to it too.
- No Andy, just ride with it.
You look great, bud.
Don't let these people bring you down.
Let's take a look at
the bagel, real quick.
Nice bubblage.
- Thank you, it's a well-made bagel.
- Oh.
- Well-made.
- Not up for discussion.
- [Claire] No.
I got American.
Does anyone have a problem with that?
- [Brad] I'm not a big
American cheese guy.
- For a melt, I feel
like you want American.
[upbeat jazzy music]
There, I think they're done.
Tuna melts for all.
Mm, they smell good, don't they?
Lunchtime.
This is the most delicious
lunch in the world.
- I call bull [beeping] on Chris.
I mean, it works with this.
- [Claire] It works.
- It works.
- They're a little crusty.
It wasn't the worst thing in the world
that I have to remake the bagels.
- American cheese?
Mm!
- American.
- My girl!
- Hate American cheese.
- Dilly Manilly!
- Come on, on this?
- I would have maybe
got a little provolone.
- All right, Brad.
Here, let's leave one for Chris.
Can you put this on Chris' station, Brad?
Dan gets the last one.
Thank you for letting me do that.
So now I can focus on making the dough.
[upbeat jazzy music]
This is just the exact
same dough as yesterday.
This stuff is so crazy.
Most of the changes
that I am going to make
will happen during the
boiling and baking process.
Oh, and I'm gonna make them smaller, too.
That was the other thing.
I'm gonna make them smaller.
Do you wanna knead it for a while?
- Yeah, I'll knead it!
- Oh great.
- Let me help!
- Fantastic.
- I'm gonna wash my hands.
- Okay, great.
This needs a little elbow grease.
Some Brad Leone elbow grease.
- You just tell me when to stop.
- Okay, keep going.
- [Brad] All right, you got it, boss.
- [Claire] You're doing great.
- You got it boss!
So what we're doing here is
building some gluten structure.
Right Claire?
- [Claire] Doing great.
- Thanks, Claire.
Making videos for Bon Appetite.
- [Claire] That looks so good.
That looks perfect.
- Great.
- You did a just really great job.
All right.
- Oh, a little oil huh?
- Yeah, I like--
- Are you creating a perfect atmosphere.
- Yeah.
- How come cornmeal?
[upbeat jazzy music]
- It's proofed.
It's filled with air.
I'll do the same thing as yesterday
but smaller portions of dough.
I think about three quarters of an ounce..
These are like the teeniest
tiniest little pieces.
I'm just gonna keep forming
these tiny little bagels
til I get to the end.
I had like 21 or something last time.
I think I'll have a bit more like,
so if I did, hold on.
Four, 40%, if I'm making them 40% smaller,
I'm trying to do math.
How many more am I gonna have?
21.
[chuckling]
I don't know.
I can't do that math.
Sorry.
Why don't we just tell
you when we get there?
I'll have more.
All right, how many I got?
Five, 10, 15, 20,
plus 12, 32, 34.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Get these into the fridge
so they can proof overnight.
All right, for the rest of the afternoon
I'll just try to do some
prep for the toppings
so that tomorrow after I make the bagels
I can quickly get them
topped and into the freezer.
I'm being blinded.
Seriously, you're right
in front of the light.
Jeez.
No, don't!
No, don't throw that.
[laughing]
Dan, stop!
Stop, it fell on the floor!
Dan!
Dan.
- Ooh!
[upbeat jazzy music]
- [Claire] I would say most
ingredients, we're leaving raw
on the pizza.
I really dislike green bell pepper.
A couple people requested pineapple,
Sohla and Gaby.
Moving onto mushrooms.
I want them to look like
that classic mushroom
cross-section.
I'm using the mandolin and I'm
gonna go really, really thin.
Look, I'm gonna do florets like this.
- [Alex] Wow.
- The cutest.
- Just the cutest little Bagel Bite.
- Yeah, exactly.
This is for mine.
- Veggie Supreme?
1992, baby.
- 1990s veggie.
How's it going?
- This cheese is quite warm.
This is turning into like a,
you don't wanna feel this.
- [Claire] I'm just grating the Parm.
- We're doing both of these?
- Yeah.
Oh, you only did that one?
Keep going.
[laughing]
No, Delaney!
No, no, no!
Keep grating, please help me!
I'm just breaking it up
so it doesn't all clump together.
But this is expertly grated cheese, truly.
Delaney, I can't pay you money,
but I will pay you in
slices of mortadella.
I think I'm gonna cut,
I'm gonna use a little cutter
and cut circles of it.
And I'm gonna try to get some of the fat
in each circle so that I have--
- [Alex] That's cute.
- I do love mortadella!
Who doesn't love mortadella?
- [Alex] Those are cute.
- So cute.
This is the Sopressata.
For Andy-bo-bandy.
It's an apple corer.
And now I can--
- I'm getting into that.
- Right?
Teeniest, tiniest--
- So good!
That is classic.
- Cute.
- Yes.
- This is now pepperoni,
and I want this to look like
the original Bagel Bite,
so I'm going to cut it into tiny cubes.
Fine dice.
Okay, so two things left.
One, open the clams
for a white clam pie.
Open them on the stove with some garlic,
a little white wine, and olive oil,
and red chile.
So I'm just gonna add a splash of wine.
I can hear them hissing.
Oh yeah.
Smells so good.
Like, incredible.
This is gonna be the best one.
So I'm going to finely chop some parsley.
I wanna add a little bit of lemon zest.
I'm gonna take this off the heat
because I'm gonna take the
clams out of the shells
and chop everything together.
This mixture will kind of
absorb this clam liquid
which is what I want.
It's really strong, salty.
It's delicious.
I guess I gotta kind of cook the anchovy,
Calabrian chile,
and paper thin slices of garlic
for Chris' pizza,
just so that they don't have
such a raw flavor.
The garlic doesn't have
any color on it yet
so it's just sort orf lightly sweated.
I kind of have created like
a garlic chile oil paste.
Here's my stack of all
the prepped toppings.
Low moisture mozzarella,
our cooked tomato sauce,
black and green olive, thinly
sliced canned pineapple,
very thinly sliced white mushrooms,
finely grated Parm, circles of mortadella,
Sopressata, and fine diced pepperoni,
tiny florets of raw broccoli,
slices of raw green bell pepper,
our clam mixture,
and garlic Calabrian chile anchovy oil.
I feel good about tomorrow.
I think, I'm glad I ended
up making the bagels over
because I'll really be able to control
the level of done-ness now.
But tomorrow should be fun.
It'll just be assembly.
All these are gonna go in the fridge,
and then we come back
tomorrow and make Bagel Bites.
[upbeat jazzy music]
All right, so these are not floating
which means these just have to sit out
at room temperature
for a little bit longer
so that the yeast has
a chance to come alive.
The only concern would be timing
because we are on a schedule.
But that's all right.
I'll probably put them in here on proof
but with the door open, because sometimes
it gets too hot on the proof setting.
Probably put in a half to a third as much
of barley malt syrup.
I want it to look like iced tea I think
instead of a really
strong brewed black tea.
I'll just go ahead and finish prepping
any last ingredients for toppings
while I wait for the dough.
For example, I am
pulling off the teeniest,
tiniest, newest leaves
from the basil plant.
It's definitely not gonna freeze well.
You can't freeze basil leaves.
I mean, one thing you
could do is fry them.
I'm just gonna, for splatter.
Here we go.
I actually love the look of fried basil.
It is like stained glass.
Pretty, right?
What else was I gonna do?
Thinly slice some red
onion and some garlic.
I actually wonder if it might
be better to use a shallot
instead of red onion.
I just want the whole thing to kind of be
on a smaller scale.
I actually really, really
like raw garlic on pizza.
What am I gonna do about Gaby's ham?
We have prosciutto, I guess
I'll prep the prosciutto.
Jesus, Dan.
My god.
Working in a restaurant gave me
better hand-eye coordination.
I would like catch things as they fell
off of counters and stuff.
Okay.
I think Gaby was the only
one who requested ham.
All we have left to do
is check on the bagels
and start to cook those.
They are so cute.
I can't stand it.
I do love them.
Oh yeah.
So, they pass the float test.
Yay!
They are ready to cook.
Very pleased.
It's all gonna work out.
I wasn't nervous.
I knew it was gonna be fine.
They look good.
I don't think they're
taking on as much color
from the liquid as last time.
Don't mind that.
Human hair.
I think the biggest
difference is going to be
once they're in the oven,
just not letting them
take on too much color as they bake.
Oh, that one's trying to flip over.
Okay.
[timer beeping]
Let's take another one and look at it.
I feel like they're done.
They're starting to get a little crunchy
and I don't want to overshoot it,
because that would be really bad.
I mean, looks good.
Looks like a bagel.
Chris, will you come look?
- Is that what I'm smelling?
- Here.
- It is what I was smelling.
- Give them a feel.
Do you think it's the
right amount of done-ness?
I feel like it is.
- Yes, oh for sure.
- Overall, dimensions,
I think it looks I pretty good.
I mean, they're not all exactly this size,
but I think it's really close.
I'm very happy with the interior.
Fully cooked.
There is some crustiness to it,
but in general it's flexible, it's soft.
They'll actually really
benefit from another bake
in the oven to toast.
I'm going to uncover all the toppings
and get them ready to go
for all of our Test Kitchen friends.
Here's what we're doing.
Everyone is assembling their own pizza.
Everyone gets a half of a sheet.
Be sure to label your half,
because then we freeze these.
All of the meats.
[Molly gasping]
That's your mortadella
- Is that a hot dog?
- That's prosciutto for Gaby.
- Okay, mine is fresh ricotta cheese,
mozzarella and Parm, so triple threat,
three cheese, with mortadella mountains,
olive, and garlic.
- Yeah mine, half and half.
Little olive, and mushroom.
- To start off pretty classic,
but then I'm gonna use that
anchovy Calabrian chile
olive oil topper.
- My request was black olives
mushroom, and pineapple.
Do you have black olives?
- [Claire] Yeah.
- Yeah, but they're mine.
- [Sohla] We can share.
- [Claire] No Brad, don't use it all.
- [Gaby] Share!
- [Sohla] You're not
gonna share black olives?
- I need my ham on.
Originally, I said
[speaking foreign language]
ham and pineapple.
Is this anchovies and chile oil?
- [Claire] Yeah, and garlic.
- [Gaby] We should have made
up a new flavor here, huh?
- Gaby, you're going rogue.
- Oh Andy, they're so cute and tiny!
- I requested sauce,
cheese, some kind of spicy
cured meat situation,
maybe some chile oil.
- All right, did I get everything on mine?
Broccoli, olives, mushroom,
onion, green pepper, yup.
With the kind of standard Bagel
Bites flavor with pepperoni.
No one labeled theirs, by the way.
- [Gaby] You said it like three times.
- Thank you.
I'm assembling the clam.
- [Dan] Do it!
- Variety.
In traditional Italian cooking,
there's kind of a rule
about not combining seafood
and cheese, but you know.
These look so good, so colorful.
It's like everyone made
their own Christmas ornament
except for they were Bagel Bites.
Kind of put me back into like sleepovers
when you went to your friend's house
but their parents made
dinner, and you like,
everyone made their own little pizza,
and ever have one of those
little pizza parties?
Usually those were English muffins.
Anyway.
That was fun.
Now all I wanna do is cover
these with some plastic
and get them in the freezer,
because we're not actually
eating them today.
All right, does no one
move anything in here ever?
[upbeat jazzy music]
I love days like today
because the work is already done.
All I have left to do
is bake the Bagel Bites,
warm them up, melt the cheese,
and then we eat.
So I'm pretty excited.
- [Dan] Was it clear to you what happened?
- No.
Oh no!
The freezer went down
and the Bagel Bites thawed
and then you refroze them.
Well, at least there's no meat.
That would really be a problem
if there was meat, but it should be okay.
- [Dan] There was plenty of meat.
- Oh yeah,
but it was cured.
- [Dan] Claire.
- It's fine.
- [Dan] Mm!
- Oh, the clams.
Ooh.
[sighs] Okay, all right.
All right.
Do you think someone's
sabotaging Gourmet Makes
from the inside?
What happened to the ice cream?
- [Dan] Melted.
Don't worry about it.
- Oven.
425.
I think I should just bake
them all at the same time.
Just gonna get them on a sheet tray
into the oven.
Even frozen it smells really good.
Here are the clam ones.
I think they're fine.
Oh, anchovy's fine.
Or as Chris would say an-chovy,
or as Delaney would say, chovy.
Wait a minute.
We're missing a tray.
The tray had my, the original,
had the ones I made!
Should we go to the empty kitchen, okay.
Don't worry, I brought my cup.
Oh I see it, I see it.
I knew it.
All right.
We got it.
This is my veggie classic,
and then original Bagel Bite, which has
finely diced pepperoni.
Ow, these are so frozen.
We don't have room for the clam.
- [Dan] Come on!
- I'll put them separate.
The clams can go on their own tray.
Okay.
15 minutes.
I was just over here having
a leisurely conversation
and was told I should
look at the Bagel Bites,
and I have four minutes left on the timer,
so it's been, oh okay.
Let's take these out.
The sizzle, the sound of the sizzle
is very satisfying.
Hot, hot, hot.
They do smell good.
I'm most disappointed in my veggie.
These guys.
Didn't quite keep its shape.
It got a little sad.
Everything ran off.
I put too much cheese.
I really like how the
pepperoni got nice color.
I think it's actually just
the fat from the pepperoni.
Maybe we cut them in half and split?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, let's get a pizza wheel.
A tiny pizza wheel!
- Maybe just a knife.
The bagel stayed soft,
but the bottoms crisped
really nicely.
Okay, those are for you guys.
That's pepperoni.
- And I don't like pepperoni,
but I'm doing this for you.
- Oh, I think you're gonna be into it.
Classic Bagel Bite, pepperoni mozzarella,
little bit of Parm, little bit of chile,
little bit of olive oil.
- I mean, if this is
what pepperoni taste like
I would love pepperoni all the time.
It's delicious.
- Okay, now this is Chris'.
- Calabrian chile, the anchovy, anch-ovy,
and the sliced raw garlic.
And it's fantastic.
- Ooh I would eat a couple more of those.
- [Gaby] Is that yours?
- [Claire] Andy, say what's on yours
- [Andy] This one has Sopressata.
- [Claire] Sopressata, yeah.
- And then mozzarella,
and you fried the little basil leaves,
and the Calabrian chile oil.
- The heat.
- Oh, because you put the chile oil on.
- Yeah.
- Oh my god, that one looks like a face.
- Should we try?
- Ooh, I go for that one.
- Let's try it.
- Let's try Sohla's.
- This was my favorite order as a kid.
- [Gaby] Pineapple and black olives.
- [Sohla] And mushroom.
- [Gaby] Nothing else.
Oh, mushrooms.
- That's not bad.
Pretty good.
I would eat that.
- The pineapple comes a
lot more than in mine.
Try mine.
Mine was ham and pineapple.
- [Claire] And we got
you prosciutto, sorry.
We didn't get you Paris ham.
That's all we had.
- I put a bunch of pepper on top.
- Mm, that's good.
- What about this guy?
- Oh yeah, there's a green pie?
- No, that's clam.
- [Dan] You said it was
gonna be the best one
and now you're acting
like it never happened.
- Wait this is yours?
- Yeah.
- [Sohla] Oh.
- [Claire] This is Dan's.
- [Gaby] It's very yummy.
- It just doesn't actually
give me clam pizza vibe.
A little too salty.
- It's not really--
- Clam toast.
- Yeah, it's clam toast.
It's not really clam pizza.
We all just ate ours but we cut them up
so we could each taste all of them.
- Mm!
- It's yummy.
- Yours, I think, with the
amount of ricotta on it,
it doesn't so much read as pizza,
but it just tastes really good.
- Mm-hmm.
That's very ricotta forward.
- Hey.
- Sup, dude?
- [Claire] Do you want a Bagel Bites?
- [Molly] It does smell
like fancy pepperoni.
- It is fancy pepperoni, look,
because they all ran.
- This is good.
- In a shock to no one, I
feel like they all need salt.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
- Try the clam.
- This is like a clam casino Bagel Bites.
- Yeah, it's not really pizza.
- Which is tight.
Which one's yours?
- Mushroom, pineapple, olive.
- What?
- I'm very happy.
I'm happy with the bagel in particular.
- [Alex] The crisp on it is so nice.
- Yeah, they reheat really well.
- Please, I insist.
- Well, I love making bagels
so that part was really fun,
and it actually kind of made
me wanna make mini bagels
as a thing.
The topping part was really easy,
it's just like buy good
quality ingredients
and put them on top and freeze them.
I'm happy that the reheating went so well,
and there was no part of
this that wasn't a success.
I think the Gourmet Makes version
was like orders of
magnitude over the original,
and that doesn't always happen.
Not only that, but I'm
glad that to get there
I didn't have to pull out some crazy stop
or some kind of trick.
I could make these at home,
and I can't say that for a lot of episodes
of Gourmet Makes, at least
for it to turn out this good.
- [Dan] Cool.
- Okay.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Here's how you make gourmet Pizza Bites.
No, wait.
- [Dan] No, we gotta start over now.
- Bagel Bites, sorry.
All right.
Here's how you make gourmet Bagel Bites.
To proof the yeast, combine one teaspoon
active dry yeast and two
tablespoons lukewarm water
in a small bowl, and stir
until the yeast is dissolved.
Set aside until the mixture is foamy.
To make the dough, combine
three and a half cups
bread flour and one and a
half teaspoons kosher salt
in a large bowl.
Make a well in the center
and pour in one tablespoon
barley malt syrup, one cup
of room temperature water,
and the yeast mixture.
Mix until a shaggy dough
forms, then turn it out
onto the work surface and knead by hand,
adding more flour as
necessary to prevent sticking
until you have a smooth, very firm dough
that is only slightly tacky.
Form into a ball, cover,
and let sit in a warm spot
until nearly doubled in size.
Uncover the dough and punch down lightly.
Portion the dough into
three quarter ounce pieces,
then form each piece into a ball.
Poke a hole in the center of each ball,
and form into a ring
about two inches across,
then flatten slightly and
place on a cornmeal dusted
parchment lined baking sheet.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next morning, check
to see if the bagels
pass the float test by placing
one in a bowl of water.
If it floats, return the baking
sheet to the refrigerator
while you prepare the boiling liquid.
Fill a large dutch oven with water,
add barley malt syrup to
the water by the tablespoon
until it's the color of black tea.
Bring to a boil.
Boil the bagels a few
at a time for one minute
turning halfway through,
then use a spider to transfer
to a bowl of ice water to cool the bagels.
Pat the bagels dry, place
on a cornmeal-dusted peel,
then transfer to a baking stone
preheated in a 450 degree oven.
Bake until the bagels
are deep golden brown,
then remove from the oven
and let cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce.
Lightly crush and drain a 28 ounce can
of whole peeled tomatoes,
and let sit in a colander
to drain further.
Cook four smashed and peeled garlic cloves
in three tablespoons of
olive oil in a large saucepan
over medium heat until lightly browned,
then stir in a quarter
teaspoon of red pepper flakes
and three tablespoons
tomato paste, and cook,
stirring constantly, until
the paste is caramelized.
Add the drained tomatoes
and a splash of their juices
to dissolve any brown bits
on the bottom of the pot,
and season with salt and
a pinch of dried oregano.
Throw in two big sprigs
of basil and transfer
to a 300 degree oven.
Cook the sauce, stirring once,
until very thick and
concentrated, about 40 minutes.
Let cool completely,
then pluck out the basil
and pulse the mixture in a food processor
to smooth it out.
Season with more salt, and let cool.
Halve the bagels and
spread with a thin layer
of tomato sauce.
Top with finely-shredded low
moisture mozzarella cheese,
a sprinkle of finely
grated Parmesan cheese,
finely-diced pepperoni,
and a drizzle of olive oil.
Freeze the bagels overnight,
then microwave or bake according
to package instructions.
What's your bagel?
Build your bagel.
- Everything bagel, scallion cream cheese.
- [Claire] And that's it?
- That's it.
- Done.
- [Claire] Really?
- Pumpernickel, but with
scallion cream cheese.
- Really?
Because I want everything
bagel, cream cheese,
very thinly-sliced red onion,
tomato in summer, and lox,
and a little lemon.
- Exact same, except I'll do everything.
Or pumpernickel.
- [Claire] I said everything.
- Oh, you do.
- [Claire] Yeah.
Maybe some capers.
- Lox, red onion, caper,
but the capers' gotta be between the lox--
- Yes.
- And the cream cheese.
- Yes.
- And none of that, like--
- And red onion too,
with only lots on top.
- Rolling around.
