Ladies and gentlemen! You have asked for it! (And I do mean @under-the-arch literally asked for it, so I am overly exited to make this post) An easy baking recipe for beginners, and this is one of my personal favorites ever:
500gr of all purpose flour(or 18oz, if you are uncivilized)
30gr or 2tbsp of powder milk
15gr or 0,5oz of fresh yeast (if you use dry instant yeast, a third of the amount)
25ml or 5tsp of neutral oil (sunflower optimally)
On a bowl goes the flour, powder milk, sugar, salt, yeast and water (preferably, you don’t want the yeast and the salt directly touching, since the salt will kill some of the yeast; just each on a different extreme of the bowl). Knead until homogeneous, the add the oil and knead again until integrated. Once that is done, either pass the dough to a floured surface, or if you have one big good bowl to begin with skip that, and knead until smooth and soft.
General kneading advice: don’t tear the dough. Stretch it as much as possible without it tearing, then fold it. After that, turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat. If it has become a bit hard to handle due to the folding, put your hands around the dough and rotate over the table it until it is ball shaped, the proceed.
Once smooth, shape it as a bun and let rest 30 minutes. Once done, cut the dough in 6 pieces, shape those as buns, and let rest until the feel really soft to the tact. Once again, once that is done, you want hold the bun and put your thumb on top of it, and your index on bottom (same hand, just in case, though it would be funny to see that misunderstanding) and press together. After that, with both your indexes, stretch it from the inside into a thin donut shape (this puff in an unexpected scale, so trust me, you don’t want em with a small hole). Once repeated 6 times, let rest until double in size.
Lastly, turn your oven to 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit. For a better look, you can paint the bagels with a mixture of yolk and water. In they go for 15 minutes, though each oven has its own quirks, so check it is golden and when you put a wooden stick through it, it comes out dry (a cooking thin stick, abstain from using the hammers handle to do so).
This seems like a long recipe, but I swear I just over explained it; basis is merely “all to a bowl, then knead, then round it up and let rest, cut in 6 and let rest, give donut shape, rest, then oven”. It’s exceptionally simple and supremely tasty, both for breakfast or a sandwich. Promise you Archie, wifey will love em.
Now that I think about, this kinda counts as a wedding gift for @that-catholic-shinobi as well!
