Seeded Multigrain Bagels and Some Bread Making Tips

I really love my multigrain seeded bread, so I decided to convert it to bagels. Now, looking at the list of ingredients, it looks like an awful lot to have to measure out.  Bread making tip #1: When you have extra time, measure out all the dry ingredients for you bread (minus the yeast) and place it in an airtight container...I make several batches of the dry ingredients, so when I want bread, I can pull out one of the containers and the wet ingredients and be done.  It definitely makes this recipe much faster to make.  And bonus, the dry ingredients are exactly the same for these bagels as for the multigrain seeded bread. 

I have been having people ask me why their bread isn't rising, or how to get it to rise better.  Gluten free flours like water...they absorb it, leaving the bread dense and dry, and unable to rise.  Make sure you have enough water in the dough/batter, and let it rise in a humid environment.  For a loaf of bread, I follow Nicole Hunn's advice, which is heat a very wet tea towel in a microwave.  Once it is piping hot, quickly open the microwave, place the loaf of bread inside, put the hot towel on top and shut the microwave again.  This closed environment should stay warm and moist enough for the 20-30 minutes needed to let the bread rise.  If your recipe requires longer, just take the bread out and reheat the towel and do the same thing over again.

Now for larger items, like a pan of bagels, rolls, or breadsticks...This will be basically the same type of thing, but in the oven, instead of the microwave.  Heat the oven for a few minutes at 200F, then turn it off.  Place a baking pan on the bottom rake of the oven and fill it with boiling water.  Place the bread in the oven and leave the door shut until it's time to preheat the oven.  Finish letting the bread rise on the countertop, while the oven preheats.  Then you should be good to go! So, to summarize, make sure you have enough water present while the bread is rising for it to rise.

Now on to the bagels.  This recipe is a simple modification from my bread recipe and is easy to make, especially if you've premeasured the dry ingredients.

This post is featured on Allergy-Free Wednesday and Bake Your Own Bread.

Multigrain Seeded Bagels
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup millet flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1/3 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (1 packet of Knox Gelatine)
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 tablespoon millet
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds, plus more to sprinkle on top
1 tablespoon roughly chopped pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, plus more to sprinkle on top
1 tablespoon poppy seeds, plus more to sprinkle on top
Boiling water bath:
6-8 cups water, boiling
1-2 tablespoons honey

Directions

In a small bowl  mix together water, yeast, honey, oil, and vinegar.  Let sit for ~3-5 minutes. In a medium bowl (I used my stand mixer for this), stir together dry ingredients.  Add the yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until combined.  Once combined, mix on high speed for 3-5 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 portions.  Grease your hands with shortening and shape each portion into a ball. Place onto a greased cookie sheet and poke the center with your finger. Move your finger around, until the hole is a decent size and the bagel now resembles a bagel.

Place in a warmed oven (with a pan of hot water on the bottom rake) and let rise for 20-30 minutes. Towards the end of the rise, remove the bagels and the pan of hot water from the oven and preheat the oven to 400F.

When the bagels have finished rising, place them one at a time in the boiling honey water. Boil on one side for about 30 seconds, then flip and boil it on the other side for another 30 seconds. Remove the bagel from boiling water and allow it to drain on a cooling rack, while you boil the other bagels.

Place the boiled bagels onto a greased cookie sheet and sprinkle the tops with sesame seeds, poppy seeds and/or sunflower seeds.

Bake bagels in preheated 400F oven for 20-25 minutes, or until they are a nice golden brown. Remove from oven, and allow to cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before enjoying.  If you don't eat them fresh from the oven, store them in the fridge and reheat them in the microwave to make them taste fresh.
The bagels should last a few days if stored in the fridge and a few months if stored in the freezer.

Udi's Review

I am so incredibly behind on reviews, but this one, no matter how behind I get, really needs to be done.  I LOVE UDI'S!  They saved us when I changed my older son's diet, he has been the pickiest with the gf breads, and Udi's has allowed him to enjoy PB&J's again.

I recently got the opportunity to become a community ambassador for Udi's.  This means I get to share the love at Gluten-free meetings and at in-store demos, etc.  I'm not bound to only love Udi's, so I can still try and review other products, but I chose to affiliate myself with this company because of how they have helped us on our gluten-free journey.

Being an ambassador, I got to try everything in the product lineup: (1) Udi's Gluten Free White Sandwich Bread, (2) Udi's Gluten Free Whole Grain Bread, (3) Cinnamon Raisin Bread, (4) Udi's Gluten Free Plain Bagels, (5) Whole Grain Bagels, (6) Cinnamon Raisin Bagels, (7) Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust, (8) Udi's Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls, (9) Udi's Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins, (10) Udi's Gluten Free Double Chocolate Muffins, (11) Udi's Gluten Free Lemon Streusel Muffins, (12) Udi's Gluten Free Granola, Au Naturel, (13) Udi's Gluten Free Granola, Cranberry, (14) Udi's Gluten Free Granola, Vanilla, and (15)Udi's Gluten Free Granola, Original.


Fifteen products, and they all have been amazing.  When I conveniently switched my boys bread from their white sandwich bread (which they love!) to the whole grain, they didn't even notice.  What mom can say that about switching from white to whole wheat?!?!  So, yes, we are now big fans of the whole grain bread.  I already am a huge fan of their plain bagels, and their whole grain and cinnamon raisin do not disappoint.  My older son is loving bagels now, too.  I don't think he ever really ate bagels before our diet change, but he definitely does now.  I have to say with both the cinnamon raisin bagels, and the cinnamon raisin bread.  That option was always taken for granted.  I chose so many other types of bagels over cinnamon raisin back in my gluten days, but really I almost cried when I ate the cinnamon raisin bagel for the first time.  Being able to have an option at all, meant more than I could imagine.

The muffins are amazingly good, they are like those jumbo bakery muffins that I used to indulge in, I love them.  I've already raved about the double chocolate muffins, which by the way, I never get to eat, because my boys down them too fast.  But the blueberry ones are like eating fresh blueberries, they are so good.  But, I think my favorite is the lemon streusel, I love lemon and they have just the right amount in the muffin, with just the right amount of chewiness.  It's simply heavenly.

I think my boys two favorite things, beyond what they already have as regular favorites, were the cinnamon rolls and the pizza crust.  My older one begged me for cinnamon rolls for days when we tried them for the first time.  And the pizza crust is our new regular.  The first time we had it, my older son ate the crusts off of everyone's plate....he never eats the crusts!!!  It is a thin crust, and we usually go for thicker crusts, but they were so incredibly easy and so tasty, it definitely is a new regular in the house.

Now for the granola, can a just say how happy I am that I can snack on granola again...and how amazing it is that their original granola has pistachios, I love it!  All of their granola is really tasty, and I find myself looking for ways to add granola to everything, just so I have an excuse to eat it. :)

Quite simply put, all of Udi's gluten-free products get 10 out of 10 from me and my family, they have given us back some of that normalcy and convenience we have been missing.  Once again:  I LOVE UDI'S!!!

Udi's Gluten Free Plain Bagels -- Review

I love bagels, but I never really ate them that much.  So, going gluten-free I figured that was one of those bread items I could easily just live without.  And honestly, I probably could, but my mother-in-law but us a couple bags of the Udi's gluten free bagels, so I had to try them....and I haven't been able to stop eating them since.  They have the perfect bagel texture, chewy, but not to chewy, and not too heavy, yet they are nice and filling, so they make a perfect breakfast.  I actually like these better than their white sandwich bread, and we are never without that bread in our house (mainly because my little ones refuse to eat my bread :P).  I have been making ham and egg bagels for breakfast, and have been snarfing them down so fast I forget to take pictures.

It's funny how something you take for granted in a past life, becomes a treasure in this one...how I love bagels now!

Overall rating 10 out of 10  I honestly can't think of anything bad to say about it, other than maybe the price, but we're used to that, right?  They are so, so, so good!