When you can't buy chewy, first-rate bagels, you can make them at home--in just 45 minutes, after chilling the dough in the refrigerator overnight.
The Problem
Most of the recipes we looked at were remarkable only in their similarity. Both the ingredients--bread flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and water--and the technique--knead the dough, allow it to rise, shape into rings, allow it to rise again, then boil and bake--became predictable to us. So did the end product--and it was disappointing. Rather than plump, smooth, golden brown bagels, we had small, dense hockey pucks, with crusts that were dull, wrinkled, and a mottled brown. The flavor was bland and unappealing, and the internal crumb structure very dense. We didn't know it then, but these typical recipes were overlooking one crucial ingredient and one crucial step.
The Goal
Bagels good enough to eat unadorned, with a complex, yeasty aroma, a golden crust stubbled with the crispy fermentation bubbles that bakers call "fish eyes," and a tenaciously chewy interior.
The Solution
We tried high-gluten flour, which is the flour of choice at most professional bagel bakeries and pizza shops, and it was easy to see why this flour is so popular with professionals. This batch of bagels had a satiny smooth (as opposed to lumpy) and elastic (as opposed to brittle) dough. The bagels rose higher, and the crust was smoother and more attractive. The interior structure was also improved; these bagels were lighter and chewier than previous batches. The second professional secret we eventually uncovered involved a process known as retarding, which involves placing the shaped bagels in a specially designed refrigerator, called a retarder, for several hours or overnight. We were able to get similar results in a regular refrigerator.