SESAME SEED BAGELS (VAREN GEVREK)

Briefly boiled then baked bagel - is one of my favorite breakfasts in the world! I love eating bagel, crunchy in the outside and soft in the inside. I think bagel is something that is known worldwide. It's a circular bread, typically encrusted with sesame seeds on top. And what is better than sesame bagel? Well, of course, a homemade sesame bagel! That awesome taste of fine baked dough is really hard to resist. Here's a recipe that I've tried on my own.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of flour
• 1 yeast cube (40 g)
• 2-3 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar (not full)
• 400 g of sesame seeds
• 2-3 tablespoons honey.

Preparation:

1. Put yeast with sugar in a bowl for kneading and add about 100 ml of lukewarm water..
2. Once yeast is dissolved and activated (with occasional stirring to melt faster), add 400 ml of lukewarm water, flour, salt and oil.
3. Knead dough well until it stops being sticky on hands and until it is smooth enough.
4. Divide dough into small balls, depending on desired bagel size. Each of the balls are individually sucked with hands to get long form, which then connects to circle.
5. Immediately place bagels into boiling water where you've added the honey, because if they stay for a while, they'll rise a lot and become softer and more difficult for handling. The amount of water and honey vary and depend on the size of the pot in which bagels are being boiled.
6. Bagel is cooked and ready to be removed when it rises from the bottom of the pot to the surface.
7. Remove from water with the help of a large kitchen spoon with holes and place directly into a bowl with sesame. Then put into a greased baking pan or on a baking paper.
8. When the pan is full, put to bake at 250 C degrees until bagels are nicely browned.

Enjoy!