Last night was a challenge

Yesterday I made 2 batches of regular bagels. I'm putting together gift bags for some friends at AWANA which resumes tonight.

When I turned out the dough, I saw one almost perfect dough and another sticky dough. I decided to knead them together, and all my old breadmaking skills came in handy. What I achieved was a nearly perfect dough.

I changed the boiling water: Instead of 2 TBS sugar, I used 2 TBS baking soda. The alksline water is supposed to give more of a crispy crust, and it did. The bagels got very brown, and had a faint salty taste to the crust. I liked the results.

Then I made a batch of Cinnamon Raisin and one of Cranberry Orange. Something was wrong and both batches did not raise, properly. I'm sure I added the tsp of yeast but at the point of punchdown, each dough was about half what it usually is and the dough never recovered.

When I put them in the boiling water they sank. This is the first time ever. Usually they immediately float. The result was small chewy bagels which I can't give as gifts. Although not as good as normal, they are still edible and so I bagged them and froze them for my family to eat.

I need to figure out just how many bagels I've made now. I just bought another 30 lbs of flout. I'm going through it quickly.