Cookies and Bagels

Thursday night, I started making cookies at 8:00.  Note to self: worknights are not great nights to start making cookies near bedtime, especially a recipe that makes 2 dozen cookies and calls for a glaze!  Hence, you are not hearing about them until today.  By the time I finished up, it was around 10:00, and I had to be up early for an informational MCAS meeting for parents (I had one dad show up, and he stayed for 15 minutes... worth getting up before dawn... NOT).  Anyway: they were called melt in your mouth orange cookies.  I love orange, and I suppose I would like cookies to melt in my mouth, so the last time I went grocery shopping, I picked up a few oranges with these babies in mind.  I had realized that so far in this resolution, I had not made any cookies!

What I found out: I don't really love making cookies.  They came out good enough, but cookies just are not easy to work with.  Bread dough is easy to knead, cupcake batter just gets scooped and poured... cookie dough is not easy.  My mom also told me I was making cookie mistake #1: letting them melt a little on the pan before I put them in the oven.  I was reusing pans and not letting them cool, and letting them wait their turn on top of the stove.  Apparently this makes them look flat and melty.  Lesson learned Mine definitely do not look like the picture, and you know how much I hate when my food does not look like the recipe.  They did come out delicious though - very orange-y.  There was a lot of orange juice and zest in both the cookie and the glaze, and I do have to say that they live up to their "melt-in-your-mouth" name.  I will work on my cookie phobia again soon.  Why should I be scared of cookies and not of bagels!?

Today I decided was a good day for bagels.  I had made these in December before I started my blog.  In fact, I think it was what gave me the confidence to cook and blog about it, because - let's face it - making bagels is intimidating.  Actually, I had pinned a bagel recipe on Pinterest and wrote, "I wish I had the cooking confidence to make my own bagels."  After looking at the recipe more and more, I started to think that maybe I could try making them.  There were step-by-step pictures- how hard could it be?!  And to be honesty, it really was not all that hard.  It is certainly a lengthy process, but it isn't difficult - just not something to try when you want to eat them right away, and you don't want to start them late at night either!  Once I was done, I was so proud of myself - and I had 13 delicious bagels to prove my new skill.

Basically there are four major steps: sponge, dough, boil and bake.  you make something called a sponge with flour, water and yeast and let it rise for a couple hours.  Then you add some more flour and yeast, malt (I used honey), and salt, and you have the dough.  Knead like crazy (and this is a workout, believe me!), make rolls, and wait.  Make bagel holes - and wait.  Refrigerate overnight (this is when I start getting impatient).  Then boil them -only for a couple minutes.  Apparently, the boiling is what turns them from bread to bagels.  I read somewhere that an unboiled bagel is just a roll with a hole!  Then comes the baking, and voila!  Bagels, about 24 hours after you started :)  but trust me - they are well worth the wait.  They are so much more delicious than store-bought, and even bakery bagels!  They are great toasted or not toasted.  I have not tried making anything other than plain bagels, but the options are endless once you have perfected the process.  I am not quite ready for fancy schmancy bagels... mine are still what I like to call "rustic" (read as delicious, but ugly and lumpy).  I worked hard to make mine smooth this time, but they are still not perfect - a big improvement over my last ones though!  I'll get there.

No pictures of the bagels yet - you will have to wait for tomorrow, when they are finished.  They are "retarding" in the fridge  - and that is literally what the recipe says.  The jokes about my retarded bagels do not get old.

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, which frankly is why I planned bagels for this weekend.  I could not possibly care any less about football, so it is a good weekend for me to be shut in the kitchen.  I am also planning a couple appetizers for our little Super Bowl party, so I will be busy.  Not the best weekend for me to have a cold, but I will pray that my germs do not make their way into my food (and wash my hands like a crazy person). 

Okay, and I guess it would be un-New England to not say it: Go Patriots!

Recipes:
Melt in your Mouth Orange Cookies
Bagels