Bagel Bombs

Bagel Bombs

 

Many of the recipes in Momofuku Milk Bar seem intimidating and honestly I would not recommend most of them to beginners. Bagel bombs are one of the recipes that I would recommend to those starting out.  Bagel bombs are essentially large bagel bites with cream cheese in the middle. Besides needing a stand mixture, you do not need too much baking experience to make these. I will not include specific amounts of ingredients since this recipe is not available on the Momofuku Milk Mar website.

Cream Cheese Plugs

Cream cheese plugs are premolded enhanced cream cheese balls that are frozen. The original recipe used really bacon, but I used fake bacon. The original recipe also calls for scallions, but I don't like them so I kept them out.

1. Put cream cheese (I used Neufchâtel cheese) in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium high.

2. Add in fake bacon, salt, and sugar. Mix again. I would leave out the salt next time.

3. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop and weight out individual balls of cream cheese. I calculated about 28 grams per plug.

4. Place the plugs in the freezer for at least a couple of hours.

Mother Dough

The Milk Bar cookbook uses mother dough for croissants, cinnamon bun pie, and many other recipes. We will use it to make the "bagel" dough.

1. Combine salt,  flour, and active dry yeast in a stand mixture. Try to keep the salt and yeast separate before you mix.

Mix with the dough hook.

2. Add in room temperature water and mix with the dough hook using your hand until the dough gets a shaggy consistency.

3. Attach the hook attachment to the mixture and knead on low until the dough looks smooth. Knead some more.

4. Brush another metal bowl with oil. Place the dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough proof in a warm and dry part of your kitchen for 45 minutes. Proofing is the process of letting the yeast in dough convert sugars in the dough into carbon dioxide. This makes the dough rise.

5. This is a good time to make the everything bagel mix. This is a combination of salt (use half the recipe amount), white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onion, onion powder, and garlic powder. 

5. Divide the dough in equal portions. 

6. Take one of the dough balls and flatten it out with your hands.

7. Take one of the cream cheese plugs and place it on the center of the disk. Wrap the dough around the cream cheese plug. It is sort of like wrapping one of your hands around the other in a fist.

8. Roll the the ball between your two hands until the ball is smooth.

9. Repeat for the rest of your dough and cream cheese plugs.

10. Apply egg wash (egg whisked with water) all over each ball. Sprinkle the everything mixture all over the balls. Don't skimp on the egg wash or the everything mixture.

11. Bake!

Stay tuned for next week's blog post.