Seeded bagels with smoked salmon

 Firstly, I was going to blog last weekend but on Saturday I made a red tractor cake for my 5 year old cousins birthday (photo on my instagram) which took all day and by the time I'd finished I really wasn't in a baking mood. Even I have to admit that was too much a fair bit of cake!

Secondly, I wanted to blog earlier in this week after I planned to buy a second hand cannon 400D but then decided on a cannon 1100D. I then had to wait for the order as I wasn't prepared to use my digital camera again, it has been driving me insane with automatic zoom! But then on Wednesday night a girl in my year was hit by a mini bus and died later in hospital which really threw everything up. My whole year, even the school, became suddenly aware of just how precious our lives are and how little we have lived in the scheme of things, how lucky we really are. She was a truly beautiful 14 year old girl and (as cheesy as it sounds) I never did see her not smiling or chatting excitedly. The whole school was thrown into mourning and shock as a person was torn out of our community over night, my friend sums it up beautifully in this post. Today there was well over 200 people meeting in the local park to let off Chinese lanterns in her memory and to tell memories they had of her. Thank you for reading my post and blog, I wish you good luck in bagel baking and R.I.P Beth <3 

Seeded Bagels

(makes 10)

• 500 grams of bread flour 
• 7 gram sachet of fast action dried yeast 
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 300 ml of luke warm water
• 1 tablespoons of honey
• 2 tablespoon of oil
• 1 egg beaten
• 50 grams of mixed seed (I used poppy and sesame seeds)

1. mix the flour salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl, make a well in the centre
2. in a separate bowl mix the water, honey, oil and 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Add the dry ingredients and mix until a dough forms
3. tip onto a floured work top and knead for 5- 10 mins until in feels smooth. It shouldn't become stretchy because bagel dough is a firm dough, but not dry
4. once kneaded put into a lightly oiled bowl to rise for an hour (until doubled)
5. once risen knock the air out and shape into 10 equal balls of dough. roll each ball into a sausage and then seal the ends together with some water and put onto a oiled baking sheet to rise for another half an hour
6. towards the end of the rise set the oven to preheat 200oC/ 400oF/ gas mark 6 and bring a big pan of water to the boil with the remaining tablespoon of sugar
7. 2 or 3 at a time drop the bagels into the water to poach, 1 minute on each side then remove with a fish slice to help drain the water and place on a baking sheet
8. add the egg glaze to the top of each bagel before sprinkling with the seeds and baking for 15-20 minutes
9. put on a colling rack or enjoy hot with cream cheese, smoked salmon and watercress

These bagels are really completely different to the shop bought ones, they're not even comparable! These are really light but still chewy but still with that shiny skin. They'll freeze really well too and make a much lighter breakfast, lunch (or brunch!) than the shop bought ones.