We don’t bake as much as we used to, finally having figured out that two people just cannot eat the amount of bread we produce and maintain figures that are anything other than spherical, but we still have a lot of fun baking for and with other people. Thus, we were glad to celebrate World Bread Day – also known as Welttag des Brotes, la Journée mondiale du pain, and el día mundial del pan, a day set aside by ye olde foodies around the globe to celebrate the staff of life. We participated in this day by hanging with our friend Axel, and teaching him to make bagels.
(Well, D. did the teaching. Axel did the work. T. sat on the couch and read a book until such time as her special skills of tasting were needed.)
It was a perfect day for baking — the wind was just whipping along and while we enjoyed a brief walk through town, it was definitely a stay-inside kind of day. After much rummaging through various cupboards for bowls and pans, the World Bread Team decided on their bread and got started.
Newbie bread bakers are fun to watch, and Axel was more fun than most, as he sort of had a permanent expression of “Ugh!” on his face as the dough stuck to his hand… to the counter… and to the board on which he was kneading… He looked rather like a cat, disgusted with a puddle, and resisting the urge to shake his paws. Poor Axel. He persevered, though. We used a very high gluten (strong) flour, which allowed us to have a really tight, smooth dough, once it was all kneaded out, but it did start out a bit on the clingy side!
Bagels aren’t that hard, of course – they’re just bread that’s boiled in a tablespoon of baking soda and water before they’re baked. We stuck with a simple recipe – plain bagels — but T. had her heart set on blueberry bagels. Except she forgot her blueberries. ::sigh:: Next time! There are tons of variations on bagels, but the variation D. reminisced about most fondly were the salt bagels we enjoyed in Santa Rosa. Much like fat, soft pretzels, these bagels were the perfect breakfast item – a slab of grilled tofu or a scrambled egg inside, and you had breakfast for on the go. Finding the right kind of salt is a bit tricky around here, but there’s plenty of other toppings, including poppy, sesame, or flax seeds and Parmesan. T. was even tempted to try baco-bits once, but was given a Look by a certain member of the baking team. ::repeat dramatic sigh::
We probably didn’t let our bagels raise enough — the kitchen was a little cooler than we realized, and we weren’t really all that patient, to be honest, so our bagels more spread horizontally than got any kind of vertical lift on them, but for Axel’s first time, these really turned out well. They were crunchy on the outside and chewy when toasted, and just altogether yummy. We tried them first with plain margarine, and then loaded them up with Axel’s grandma’s strawberry preserves from Romania — again, yum.
In the spirit of World Bread Day being a global enterprise, we sampled our first taste of Brunost or mussmør – brown cheese from Norway. It’s right between the two plates, next to the jar of preserves in the picture… a creamy looking hunk of brown with a cheese slicer on top. While Brunost is a cheese, it’s …caramelized, and according to Wikipedia, is made by “boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste.” It’s sweet… and yet not really that sweet. Somehow, one expects it to be nutty, and instead it’s creamy. It’s definitely one of those “acquired” tastes! T. thinks it would pair well with hard pears or apples and D. felt it needed to be eaten with a particularly sharp, salty cheddar as well. Neither of us were sure it just goes with bread, and Axel didn’t eat any at all, but says his parents love it. We’ll have to experiment with it again and see what we think another day.
Mmm bagels! They look awesome, and yay for a new baker. You should have made him try to make potato bread/rolls–that dough is so awfully sticky. Tasty, but there would have been more “cat-paw-puddle” looks I think 🙂
Ooh, yeah, that’d have been … unkind on him. 😉 We’ll have him make pastry next. 🙂
Oh these look yummy especially when using the strawberry jam. Alas I had to go and give up grains so now I can’t eat these, where did I get that bright idea? Oh yeah it was my sons. Actually I’m doing wonderful off grains and sugar but I do miss stuff like this to be sure. *Note to David..Primal is about eating meat so it won’t do for you unless you want to stop being a vegetarian and get back to a caveman diet. Nan
Hmm. Yeah, I think my body’s adapted a bit from the cavemen, so won’t be doing the Primal thing. 😀
You mean I missed World Bread Day? Ugh! I’ll have to participate in a belated one. 😉
Looks like you all had a fun time (including Axel). 😉 I’m really impressed with the looks of your bagels. I know they tasted great, too.
Paz
Yeah – they went awfully quickly, too! That’s the problem with making bagels instead of bread: you eat them!
Looked like the perfect thing to do on a cold and wet day. Hope I will get my chance…about a month or two from now. (oh please, please, please hold off that long!) LOL
Why are you holding off on baking that long? I mean, I understand if you’re avoiding grains, but … well, otherwise? 🙂