My First Sourdough Bagels

This year I have gotten the urge to figure out sourdough. I have so much to learn about bread making in general, but sourdough seems extra special and interesting to figure out. I finally got a ripe starter this week (this is another story in itself!) and thought it would be fun to try out making sourdough bagels because I didn’t quite have the courage to dive into a true sourdough loaf yet. This post is all about what I’ve learned on my first try and how I would change things for the next time. Reading through the recipe, the process seems easy but I think there are so many factors that play in to a successful recipe (as I’ve shared below). The best thing about this was how I was reminded that ‘kitchen fails’ are amazing ways to grow personally and push yourself to learn.

You know that I don’t like to share a recipe that is not mine on my page so I’ve linked the recipe that I used here. The recipe comes from Farm House on Boone and I saw it on after searching for a sourdough bread recipe. The idea of making bagels hadn’t crossed my mind and it brought me so much excitement to think about how I could make a homemade bagel! How fun!! I immediately started figuring out what I needed to do and WOW, did I learn a lot!

With any sourdough recipe it seems, it needs an active or ripe starter. This was perfect because I had fed the starter that morning and planned to make the dough in the evening to rise overnight. This leads to a few of my “opportunities” or the kitchen fail moments:

1. I read the recipe wrong…yep it happens. I added all 4c of flour at one time and my kitchen aid hated me for it. I take very good care of my appliances and so I was so upset at myself when I started to smell a burning smell from my mixer. I stopped it immediately so hoping it doesn’t cause any further issues but time will tell in my next baking endeavor. Because of this, I also realized the first batch of dough I made was terrible. I had to throw it out and start over.
2. My house was too cold..it is the middle of winter and we don’t typically turn our heat on at night (it’s not needed) so when I woke up in the morning it was a nice 65 degrees and I realized my dough really hadn’t really risen in size (12 hours after I made the dough). It definitely did not double. At this point I knew this was not going to turn out as well as I had hoped but was still worth finishing to see what other things I could learn along the way.
3. My bagels didn’t float..when you make bagels, you boil them for a short amount of time in water prior to baking to get that nice bagel crust. When you put them in the boiling water, they’re supposed to float if they have enough air/rise in the dough. Mine sunk immediately to the bottom of the boiling water so this was a very key indicator that, again, my dough didn’t rise enough and was going to be dense.
4. I left the holes a little too small..this was my first time so I had really no idea how much the dough would change when I baked the bagels. The holes pretty much closed up during baking so I know for next time that I should make them a bit wider and thinner.

This was one of those recipes that I felt like I used every piece of equipment in my kitchen which was fun but also a mess. The bagels baked and honestly looked great and tasted great but were just very dense so I’m excited to try this again sometime to get a better dough rise.

All of this being said, this was a great reminder for me about why I try new things. Things aren’t always easy, things aren’t always going to turn out well like you see on instagram or social media posts…things get messy! It’s during those messy moments that you appreciate the other ‘everyday’ moments that seem so easy. I love trying and experimenting with new things because I feel like it keeps me engaged with how I feel, how I process difficult things, and it reminds me that I can continue to grow (which is hard sometimes for a recovering perfectionist).

I hope I’m not alone in feeling this way and for messing up. Tell me in the comments your favorite kitchen fail! I would also love to hear any tips on sourdough or sourdough bagels!

xoxo, LL