Pizza and Bagels

When I turn my oven on, I aim to make the most of the heat by creating two delicacies. I started today thinking about pizza for dinner. And I have been thinking about bagel the whole week. Since I watched Bob Blumer (Glutton for Punishment) learn how to make bagels, I have been dying to give it a go. While my pizza dough was proofing, I made a batch of bagels.

The pizza dough is Jamie Oliver's recipe. I make half the recipe and use a wholewheat flour / bread flour mix. Both organic. I rolled the crust thin but it didn't turn out crispy. Probably because of the wholewheat content. Toppings were homemade bollognese sauce, pineapple, mushrooms, organic capsicum, tomatoes, onions, cheese. There was enough to make 4 pizzas. We ate 2.5 for dinner, that leaves 1.5 for lunch tomorrow. Wholesome and yummy!

I tried a new bagel recipe. My usual one is from The Arthur Flour 'A Dozen Simple Bagels'. Today I came across this one from Hubpages which I thought was really simple and fuss free (no mention of malt powder or substitutes). It actually uses the same technique which Bob Blumer was trying to perfect. Cool ! Cause that was the whole reason I wanted to get my hands dirty was to try this technique.

I haven't eaten any of the bagels yet but I must say the shape of my bagels are looking a lot better than batches before.

I am compelled to confess my boo boo. When one tries to do too many things at a ago, like make pizza AND bagels, one tends to make mistakes. Especially if one works like me, I look at a recipe, and try to memorize the steps cause I don't like to refer to a paper while I work. I shaped my bagel, dipped them in poppy seeds and then remembered that oops....... that should come after I boil them. Anyway, most of the poppy seeds stayed on.

A Hmmmm point: This recipe calls for the bagels to be turned over while baking. I have not done that before. I did it today. It was messy cause the bottom of those bagels had stuck onto the reasonably oiled tray and bits came off. When the bagels were done, those bits from the bottom got stuck to the top. So although, they are shapelier, they are looking a bit pock marked. I think I will skip that step the next time. After all, I didn't see Bob doing that.