Wholemeal Bread Machine Bagels

It is no exaggeration to say that when I bought my bread maker 4 years ago, it revolutionised my life. No. Exaggeration. Seriously. This bagel recipe is very simple, and borrows heavily from this BBC recipe; the only modification I made was that I made these wholemeal rather than plain. The use of a bread machine also greatly simplifies things as it will do most of the hard work. If you don't have a bread making machine, I'd suggesting heading over to the BBC recipe and following those instructions instead. I always thought bagels would be too 'hard' or difficult to make, since they are briefly boiled before oven baked, but in fact I found them incredibly easy to make (though yes, they take a bit more time). These were not quite as dense as I like bagels, so I've reduced the quantity of water slightly in this recipe (from 300ml to 275ml).

If you aren't eating them all at once, they can be frozen. I recommend this highly as they lose their freshness pretty quickly if left out for a day or two; if frozen you get that 'just baked' taste every time.

Makes 8 - 10 bagels

Ingredients:

7g sachet dried action yeast (about three teaspoons)
300g strong white flour
150g wholemeal flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
275 ml warm water
poppy/other seeds for decorating (optional)

Instructions:
1. Add yeast, flour, sugar, salt and warm water to your bread maker pan in the order specified by your manufacturer's instructions (mine is a Panasonic and it specifies yeast first, then flour, then sugar and salt, followed finally by water).

2. Set the machine to the pizza dough setting (this should be around 45 mins). If you bread maker doesn't have a pizza option, just set it to 'dough only' (should be around 2 hours).

3. Once the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough. It might be a bit sticky so add flour as necessary to remove cleanly.

4. Punch and flatten down the ball of dough, and cut with a sharp knife into 8 - 10 pieces (depending on how large you want the bagels)

5. For each section, roll into a ball in your hands (it helps if you flour your hands first in case the dough is still too sticky), poke a hole in it with the end of a wooden spoon, stretch the hole out and place on a lightly greased baking tray.

6. Leave to rise for 1 - 1 and a half hours at room temperature (if you don't have the pizza dough setting on your bread maker, and it's already done a 2 hour dough cycle, leave it for only 20 minutes).

7. Boil a pan of water and add a couple of tablespoons of sugar. Drop 1 - 2 bagels (depending on the size of the pan) into the water for around 30 seconds, turn, and boil for another 30 seconds. There is no 'hard and fast' rule on the time here; the dough will go a slightly darker colour as a thin film develops on the outside - once this is done, remove the bagel and place back on the baking tray.

8. Do this for each of the bagels. You can then either decorate with seeds (if you do this, it helps to brush the tops with milk or egg first, of if you are vegan, an alternative), and then bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees centigrade for around 20 - 25 minutes, until the bagels make a hollow sound when tapped.

9. Remove, and cool.