Pandemic Baking: I made bagels for passover

As long as you didn’t bring them to your brother’s house for Seder…

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You should have seen me lusting after the giant bags of flour at Costco a few weeks ago. Nobody in my house bakes, but I really, really needed it, or so I felt. I managed to resist temptation at the time but now I want to make bagels and have no flour :-/

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I had the same reaction when flour first started flying off the shelves - I’m a big baker and was pretty ticked that I couldn’t make my weekly batch of corn bread (or cookies, or anything else I wanted to bake) because of all of the doomsday preppers grabbing up the white gold. Fortunately, our stores have been slowly returning to normal inventory levels in the past week or so and my baking routine has resumed.

If you’re located anywhere near Alaska, I’m happy to give you a 5 lb bag from my emergency stash!

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Pretty close, actually! We’re in North Carolina.

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Welllll Hellloo there! :smile:

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Howdy neighbor! Too bad Canada is closed right now. I’d hop in my car and be right over in… a week.

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I love corn bread. So much. Whenever I make a batch, my husband establishes a line of demarcation down the middle in a vain effort to control my consumption (or at least protect what he foolishly believes is “his half”). There’s something about a warm slab of it topped with a pat of good butter… I try to limit myself to only baking one a week because if I made more, I’d eat more and we all know how that goes.

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I’m sorry what? What did you do with the Jason feeding us bread posts for the last few weeks?! ALIEN IMPOSTER!

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What was that? Every day for a while? :blush:

The only thing better than corn bread is corn bread made with blue corn meal!

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Baking != Eating

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I use dry malt extract from the homebrew shop in the dough and boil with just lye, no extra sugar. I have done malt extract in the boil as well if you want a bit darker crust.

Unboiled bagels are just round breads.

Lye is actually no problem to use. Once mixed the solution is pretty dilute so it isn’t really much more dangerous than any other pot of boiling water. The biggest thing is to avoid getting any of the crystals on damp skin before mixing. I do wear safety glasses just in case. Do watch out the pot will want to foam up and boil over like pasta if you aren’t careful.

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You, sir, have more willpower than I. By an order of magnitude.

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This is my flat abs pandemic.

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Off topic, but does this mean if I mark my door with lambs blood this weekend, I won’t get coronavirus?

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Well, sort of. It will keep people who might be infected from wanting to come in your house. Or anyone from wanting to come in your house. Bathing your door in blood will do that. Might make it a little bit harder to get your Amazon deliveries though. :thinking:

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We’re out of flour, made the last over night dough this morning. Last time we went to the store there wasn’t any flour and we’re trying to avoid going for another 5 days to a week if we can, what with infections in the house and all that.

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baking the baking soda does not dehydrate it. It changes it, chemically, from sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. Both are bases. Bicarbonate (regular baking soda) has a pH of 8.4. Carbonate has a pH of 11. Caustic soda (lye) has a pH of 14. Lye is what’s used in professional pretzel making, and is how those pretzels get their super dark brown surface. It’s also HIGHLY caustic (right in the name!) and WILL leave nasty chemical burns if handled carelessly. Remember Fight Club? That’s lye.

Sodium Carbonate is certainly more basic than regular baking soda and, while caustic, isn’t nearly as dangerous as lye, and thus is much safer for your average home baker who wants better results but doesn’t want the safety issues of actual lye hanging around in the kitchen.

Sodium carbonate is ALSO very good for adding to the water you use to make homemade ramen noodles, which are characterized by using alkaline water and high-protein flour.

Google ‘baked baking soda’ for the full rundown and many applications.

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When I make bagels I do it Montreal, St-Viateur style. You roll those puppies out into a floppy cylinder and the wrap it around your hand, over the knuckles, and seal the ends together in the palm of your hand. The hole is bigger and the bagel is less of a puffy fattie but that’s the shape I know and love. The other difference is the boil: no baking soda - use honey - it gives the bagels a lovely glaze. Poppy seed, sesame, plain, whatever you like. Best to bake in a wood oven but they come out fine in a regular. Anytime I went to Montreal I’d always come back with a sack full of St-Viateur gems but since I learned how to do it myself I just stay home and make 'em. Yeasty self-isolation for the win!

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Fairmount bagels are better.

Actually I have no idea, I’ve only been in St. Viateur once, but in Fairmount lots of times. One reason is I knew someone closer to Fairmount.

Both places have been getting flack in recent years, because of those wood ovens. Neighbours complaining, which has a slight point since both places are kind of mixed commerce and residential.

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