Artisan Bagels : Sesame, Black Pepper and Parmesan Cheese

Sesame Bagels and Sesame Parmesan Black Pepper Bagels

The KBB challenge this time is Bagels. And not simply bagels.. it's an artisan bagels.. the one with long fermentation. See the recipe in Indonesian languange here. I love baking and eating breads especially the one with long fermentation, with crisp slightly chewy crust and moist crumb inside. I love those traditional breads.. the one people also called artisan breads. One type of bread I wanted to bake since long is the one using sourdough starter. But maybe this for the next... I don't know, I have to gather a lot of courage to try making my first sourdough starter.

Yummy Sesame Parmesan Black Pepper Bagels

 Now, back to bagels. There are several notes I'd like to share with you. I make two batches of bagels. I could not find barley malt syrup, so I substitute it with forest honey. I also could not find unbleached bread flour and simply used common (bleached) bread flour.

Nice moist flavorful crumb and slightly chewy crust

I made two batches of Bagels this time. The first one with a long fermentation inside the fridge after being donut-shaped, without using honey in the poaching liquid (well.., I actually forgot to put it in), and poaching time of 2 minutes in total for each bagel as mentioned in the recipe.

For the second batch, I put the bagels in the fridge for the same long fermentation right after kneading and before being shaped, then shape the bagels after, let it rise for another 60 minutes before poaching them. For the second poaching liquid, I add honey according to the recipe and cut back the poaching time half to 60 seconds in total for each bagel.

I think I prefer shaping the bagels after being slowly raised in the fridge, instead of shaping them before being put inside the fridge for the fermentation. Like this, the shape would be better, and there is less chance to over-proof the dough.

I noticed that the longer poaching time is, the chewer the bagel is, and using honey on the poaching liquid makes the bagel color darker.

First batch bagels

Second batch bagels

Pumpkin Parmesan Scones

Back again after four months. I spent two months holiday in France with my loving husband. We celebrated Christmas and New Year with some of our best friends there and been invited here and there for good lunch or dinner. I savored so many good foods, experiencing different new flavors I had never tasted before and every time I eat, my taste-buds were wildly flapping their wings of to the ceiling... Now I am back in Jakarta, and after one full month catching up with the work, and getting used to Jakarta's traffic jam again, I think this weekend is the perfect time for "blogging time".

In November, before I left for my long holiday, I was stunned by Stacy's pictures of her Pumpkin Parmesan Scones in her Bakercourt blog. They are gorgeous and my mind went wild imagining how the taste would be. I have to bake one. Unfortunately, I was so busy with my work and traveling here and there (also for my work). And since I was going to leave for a long holiday at the end of that month, I tried to limit my grocery-shopping so I would not have many things sitting in my fridge.

This morning I woke up and suddenly remembered that I still had half of orange kabocha pumpkin (japanese pumpkin) in the fridge. If it's still good then it would be perfect for Stacy's Pumpkin Parmesan Scones. In fact, it was still in perfect condition after sitting there for two weeks, as if it was just being cut in half one day before. A little part of it was frozen because I put it in the very back of the fridge (that's why I forgot it for long). But it didn't matter since it would be pureed anyway.

The original recipe doesn't explain how to make pumpkin puree, and I have no idea how the consistency should be. I assumed it should be like tomato puree. So I had to find my own technique for that. I decided to microwave the pumpkin, because I didn't want to add any liquid in it. Boiling or steaming would add moisture or water and make the puree more liquid. Baking it in the oven would give a kind of roasty slightly burnt flavor which I don't want.

While mixing the ingredients, instead of having 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree as in the original recipe, I accidentally pour one full cup in. Oops! my dough was too soft and sticky. But that was not a big problem. I just oiled my palms and shaped the dough (apparently this is easier and less messier than rolling and cutting the dough) in round discs of 7 cm diameter and 2 cm thick. I want big scones!

I did several changes on the recipe, even though I think they are not that important and I also think they don't change the overall end result. I also didn't have self-raising flour as the original recipe calls for, so I simply used all-purpose flour and baking powder. One important thing in making scones is to avoid gluten formation. Gluten will make scones chewy and harder and we won't have a soft and crumbly scones. Use cold ingredients whenever possible. In this recipe, I recommend using cold milk and cold puree. And... working on the dough as little as possible. Knead or mix just enough to blend all the ingredients in. Not too long.

There are several things I like from this pumpkin scones: the scones have a nice thin crust outside (maybe because of a little bit of oil from when I shaped the scones and from the egg-yolk) and quite moist soft and crumbly inside (I think that's because of the moisture from the pumpkin puree). The mix of parmesan cheese, freshly cracked black pepper and salt flakes appears to be a brilliant idea. It gives a nice salty cheesy-peppery flavor to balance the slightly sweet pumpkin flavor. Then a hint of nutmeg flavor complete the perfect blend of flavors for this scones. I like this Pumpkin Parmesan Scones a lot. So, thanks to Stacy for sharing the recipe.