-Hey, I'm Dianna Daoheung.
I'm the executive chef
of Black Seed Bagels.
We're gonna make bagels today.
Start with body temperature
water.
Stick your finger in there
and you're like,
"I don't feel anything,"
then that's how you know
it's body temperature.
Like almost all other
bread products,
there's gonna be
some kind of yeast.
We like to stick
with dry active yeast.
Drop that in there.
Canola oil.
Honey is the added Montreal
aspect to Black Seed.
We like to say Black Seed
isn't strictly a New York
or strictly a Montreal --
it's really a hybrid.
The great thing
about being a hybrid,
we had the choice of taking both
aspects of a New York bagel --
the softness interior --
and meshing it
with the sweetness
and the wood fire from Montreal.
Water, the yeast, the honey,
the oil.
Letting my yeast
sit there and activate.
And then, after that,
it's my dry ingredients.
King Arthur high-gluten flour.
But you can obviously use any
kind of bread flour you like.
We just like King Arthur 'cause
it's a good medium-grade flour.
Another ingredient that's
a little bit more specific
to bagels is malt powder.
This is always the scary part
of starting.
Okay, let's see. Okay.
All right, all right, all right.
So I'm going to let it mix
a little bit,
I'm gonna add in my salt.
Always put your salt in last.
If you put it right on
top of your yeast,
it's gonna kill
that yeast activity.
We let it mix a little,
get a little shaggy.
You can almost hear it
struggling at this point.
Bagel dough is a really
glutenous dough.
That's what gives it
that chewiness.
So let's kind of pause it.
[ Grunts ] Tilt it.
It feels nice.
You can almost feel
the warmth of the water.
It's going to take a while
to mix by hand.
Start kneading.
And so you really want a dough
that you can -- you can touch,
and you don't even need flour
to -- to knead.
I'm out of breath.
Phew.
When you hold it up
to the light,
you can kind of see light
shining through it.
This is called pulling a window.
The fact that I can do this
and it's not ripping apart
is a good sign.
Means all your glutens
are worked and your strands
are coming together.
After you kind of get it
in a nice ball,
you're gonna let it rest
in an oil bowl
covered for about 20 minutes.
Again, just to get
that yeast activated.
And then you're
gonna portion it.
You're going to measure out
four ounces.
Once you've portioned out all of
your dough into four ounces,
shape it into a nice ball.
When I first started
making bagels,
I was like, I'm not Jewish.
I kn -- I know. I know.
You guys probably all think
I'm Jewish, but...
But, you know, to pay homage
and to really understand it,
it was important for me
to learn why the hell a bagel
was even made in the beginning.
Bagels come from a traditional
Jewish Eastern European
background.
But I think, nowadays, I don't
think people even connect
the history of the bagel itself.
Originated in Poland,
in Krakow, Poland,
I think around, like, 1614,
and supposedly this Jewish baker
made a bagel to represent
the stirrup of the king.
Used to not be as huge.
It used to be really super
dense, almost like a cookie.
And it was like a lot,
a lot smaller
than -- than we know
of it today.
After it's portioned
into four-ounce balls,
we let our dough cold ferment
about 14 hours in the fridge.
By letting it proof overnight,
it'll really enhance the flavor
and also the texture of it
to get that nice yeasty
bread flavor
that you really, really want.
We're gonna Saran wrap it
and put it in the fridge.
♪♪
There you go.
And take it out.
Beautiful.
And now this is the fun part.
This is the shaping.
Since it's been proofing,
there's naturally going
to be pockets of gas
that are created by these.
To get that nice,
dense New York-Montreal bagel,
you want to get the air
out of there.
Push down a little bit,
kind of shape
it a little like that.
I roll it and then
I make it into a rope.
I want to say
it's about a foot long.
And the key is you really
want it to be super uniform.
You don't really want to be
rolling your bagel like this.
Really want to have wide hands
to give it as much surface
from your hand.
And then you're going
to pinch it.
If you don't get this part
connected when you go to boil,
it's going to come apart.
And then hardest push.
And then you're going to do
a little wrist snap.
Just keep going. Keep going.
And at first, it's gonna
seem like,
wow, that whole is really big.
But, again, since bread is
glutenous,
you kind of see
it shrinking already, right?
And then, as it boils
in the water and as it bakes,
this hole is going to shrink.
And of course, what I like about
hand-rolled bagels is,
you know,
they all don't look the same.
You can kind of tell
that somebody took the time
to really shape and roll it.
At Black Seed and most Montreal
places use honey.
It's giving it a little extra
caramelization on the outside.
You don't want it at
a rapid boil.
You want enough yeast activity
after you're done boiling
where it's going to have
what we call a baker spring.
So you're going to pop in
an oven, and it's going to get
nice and round and beautiful.
Let's drop these in here.
Boil it
for two to three minutes.
Once that yeast starts
getting activated,
you'll start seeing them
float to the top.
You absolutely have to boil it
to make a bagel.
Yes, it might be the same shape
as a bagel,
but, honestly, the boiling is
really what gives it the chew,
what gives it that shine,
what gives it
that crispiness on the outside.
So these are ready to pull out.
And, again, how do I know?
It's 'cause when I touch it,
it's not like creating a hole.
It's kind of bouncing
back at me.
Let it drain a little bit.
Just going to toss it,
pop it on there.
Everything's all seeded.
If you are going to do
an everything mix,
you do want to rehydrate this,
let it soak overnight.
And that's really the bagel shop
secret of not
getting, like, the burnt garlic.
Now we're going to pop them
in the oven at about 425.
♪♪
This has been about
20 minutes in this oven.
♪♪
So...
this is the Black Seed bagel.
I do love a really,
really hot, warm bagel.
Look that steam.
I already had my bagel quota
of the day,
but you know what?
I can't help but taste this
'cause it smells
really freaking good.
♪♪
Mm. Yeah.
You get a really crispy outside.
I don't know you could hear it.
[ Crunches ]
And the inside's
nice and soft.
There's nothing better
than a bagel that just
came out of the oven and is,
like, literally piping hot.
It's like the best thing ever.
For the recipe,
just click on the link below,
or you could just come
to Black Seed and skip
the whole cooking process.
[ Chuckles ]
♪♪
Huge steam kettles
just piping hot,
where, literally, the guys
would be almost like
buck naked making bagels.
I don't see that's how
they got the hole in the middle,
but that's my little myth.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
