These are not bagels. I’m not sure what exactly they are, but they aren’t bagels.
I followed this recipe for bagels to the letter. But instead of smooth bagel dough, my dough was full of strange pockmarks and bubbles like the surface of the moon. (Too much yeast?) Not to worry, I thought, as soon as I dump them in the boiling water, they’ll start to look like bagels.
But instead of sinking (like the recipe said) my bagels stubbornly floated at the surface and looked more like angry dumplings than anything else. Not to worry, I thought, as soon as I spread them with a nice coating of egg, they’ll take on that smooth golden color.
But the egg, instead of sinking into the dough, remained floating on top of the boiled shell and settled into puddles in the centers. Even baking, which was my last hope for transforming my egg-covered dumplings into bagels, didn’t work.
And the result was the ugliest bagels ever. My family ate them anyway.
Paige! I think they are bagels with character, And your description of them as angry dumplings made me literally laugh out loud and I couldn’t stop! By the way, I am home and coming to Gainesville, can I see you?
I got your voice mail! I’m glad to hear you’re back safely. Yes, just message me and let me know when you’ll be in town.