Bagels

Ingredients

• Sponge:
• 1 teaspoon dry yeast
• 4 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 cups water
• Dough:
• 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
• 3 3/4 cups bread flour
• 2 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon honey, molasses, or malt syrup
• Cooking water:
• 1 tablespoon honey, molasses, or malt syrup for the water
• Finishing touches:
• cornmeal for dusting the pan 
• sesame seeds, salt, onion, garlic, etc for topping

How to make it

• Dissolve the yeast in water in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours.
• Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional 1/2 tsp yeast into the sponge. Add 3 cups of the flour, the honey/molasses/malt syrup, and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball.
• Work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to stiffen the dough. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.
• Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.
• Split the dough into 16 small pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and set aside, covering with a damp towel to keep moist.
• Allow the balls to rest for 20 minutes.
• Shape the bagels using one of two methods. 1) Punch a hole through the roll with your thumb and rotate the dough, pulling to make an even bagel with a hole about 2 inches across. 2) Roll the dough into a long log, long enough to wrap around your hand. Holding one end, pull the other around the knuckles and seal the ends well by rolling them together. (Otherwise the bagel may come apart during boiling.) The holes may appear large, but will shrink with further rising and boiling.
• Place the shaped bagels on parchment paper-lined sheet pans. Cover with a damp cloth, and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes. At this point, the bagels may be put in the refrigerator to be finished first thing in the morning, or they can be boiled and baked right away.
• Preheat the oven to 500 F.
• Sprinkle cornmeal on a sheet pan. Place toppings in a shallow, medium-sized bowl.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add one tablespoon of honey to the water.
• When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for 45 seconds. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to gently flip them over and boil them on the other side, approximately 1 minute total.
• Remove the bagels one at a time and allow to dry slightly. Drop the still-moist bagels into the bowl of topping and turn to coat. (No egg wash is needed for the topping to stick.) Repeat this process until all of the bagels have been boiled and topped.
• Place the sheet pans into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes.
• Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 10 minutes until the bagels begin to brown.
• Remove the pan from the oven and let cool completely before freezing.