Baking The Perfect New York Bagel (with Recipe)

Manhattan, the center of New York’s finest bagel shops. When Jim and I go, we know that we are going to fill up on fresh bagels and lots of great coffee every day that we are there. We love them!

My favorite New York bagel is an onion bagel with cream cheese and lox, one of the many popular foods you can find in New York. You just can’t go wrong with that. So on our last trip to the Big Apple, we were determined to find out how to bake these delicious bread rings.  We signed up for a cooking lesson at the International Culinary Center on Broadway.

The Baking Class

Unlike all the other classes we’ve taken that are geared mainly for tourists, the ICC is a full on cooking school so they are very particular about what you wear and how you do things. We were sent an email stating that we had to wear long pants and long sleeves in the kitchen.

We were traveling in the summer, we didn’t have any long sleeve shirts, so the day before along with going to the 9/11 Memorial, we went clothes shopping, and if you know me, you know this is not something I would normally do. As soon as we checked in, we were given our apron and headband to wear as well.

We were the only tourists taking the class. The were about 10-12 people total, and each had a story, but none were from further than Connecticut taking the train in (one of my favorite things to do by the way).

Most of the students were amateurs, and all but a few had been to the school many, many times taking all the classes they could. One guy had just moved his young family to the city, and they were broke. In order to get hired at one of the bagel shops, he had to take the course.

Like always, it was an interesting group of folks, and I think that’s part of the fun of taking the classes is getting to know everyone’s back stories. Like Jim and me, though, many just love learning and cooking,  and we love taking cooking classes.

Getting started, the instructor’s overview let us know that a good bagel requires overnight proving (rising of the dough), so we would make our dough to learn how, but use a dough made by ICC students for the actual bagels we baked.

The instructor and her assistant were very busy making sure they demonstrated, answered questions, ran the ovens, and doing whatever was needed. It was a pretty fast-paced, really fun experience, and I’m glad that I took the class.

Jim and I, as baking partners, had shaping and boiling of the bagels. His always turns out nicer than mine. Most of mine were stubby and fat after baking and his looked like, well, bagels. Darn it!

We also loved thinking up what kinds of toppings we wanted. We tried just about everything there was available. As travelers the hardest thing was that we ended up with a lot of bagels at the end that we knew there was no way we would ever eat, so we gave most of ours to people who were bringing them to their schools and offices.

Don’t you just love a New York bagel?  Have you ever made them?  Any tips?

Author Bio: Corinne Vail is a travel photographer, food lover, and a perpetual traveler who has been travel writing for over 14 years. For many years she lived overseas in Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and the Netherlands teaching the children of the US. military. She’s visited over 90 countries, and she’s not stopping anytime soon.

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