munch, munch, munch...

The dough, rising. I used a mix of bread flour and whole-wheat. Forgot the salt, and they still turned out.

Divided into ten future bagel mounds.

One of the fun parts was rolling them into six-inch lengths before wrapping them around my hand to form the ring.

Then this guy woke up from his nap. I kept him happy by giving him his rubber ducky and yogurt to dip his Cheerios in. (Kid loves to dip.)

Final product: sea salt and sesame seed bagels. I guess one of the secrets to good bagel-age is the boiling of the dough before you bake them. That's why they're so chewy.

It helped that I had said I would make these bagels because then I was actually forced to do it. I am notorious for getting super excited about a project like this and then dropping it on a Saturday afternoon in favor of reading, sleeping, etc.

Be warned: you must have a 3.5 - 4 hour block of time to make these. They don't take four hours to actually make, but the dough takes two hours to rise, and then there are two 20-minute intervals where you must let it "rest" before moving on the next step.

Luckily, my new ReadyMade magazine had just come in the mail, so I devoured that while the dough did its thing.

Good news: they are magically delicious. I had Jono's dad and step-mom try them at our picnic yesterday, and Jan said, "These are the best bagels I've ever had! You can't get them this fresh!" (I can always count on her for enthusiasm.) We are munching happily over here on this fine Memorial Day.

If anyone has any bagel recipe shortcuts, I'd love to be enlightened. Otherwise, this working mama will need to save bagel-making for long weekends or rare, random bursts of baking ambition ;)