Gluten Free Bagels - Not from Brooklyn

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(Gluten Free, Vegan)

I love love love NY Jewish Bagels - they are both emotionally satisfying and yummy.  When I am back in the USA, I usually have one huge one every morning - a thin shmear of cream cheese, piled with lox, tomatoes, vidalia onions, pepper... and sometimes the non traditional avocado instead of cream cheese. 

In my over 20 years living away from the USA, it is the single top food I miss.  Sure I have tried bagels in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing... but it's really not the same.

Since going wheat free, it made my last trips to the USA kind of painful.  I did discover that I could eat the Sprouted Spelt Bagels from Alvarado Street Bakery, so I have these when I am back in the USA and they are really excellent, but NOT gluten free. Reminder, spelt is NOT gluten free. 

I was getting pretty desperate to try a gluten free bagel recipe, my expectations were suitably low, I was not expecting Brooklyn Bagels... but I wanted something with a chew that was different from bread or a roll.  

I think I found it with this combination - even hubby had seconds and the kids loved them too!  Served with cream cheese, wild salmon lox, yummmmmmy.  So good in fact, I forgot to slice the tomato and onion!

Many GF bagel recipes have coconut and almond flour as the main and only flours - I make so many other things with those ingredients, and I knew bagels they would not be.  At the same time, i knew just using Bob's GF All Purpose Baking Flour would not be right either... so I combined the ideas.  

So I found this easy recipe at Bob's Red Mill and modified it.

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons of chia seeds
• 12 Tablespoons of warm water

• 2 1/2 cups Bob's GF All Purpose Baking Flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (not needed if you use Bob's 1:1 GF Flour)
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 Tablespoons coconut sugar 

• 1 cup warm water
• 3 Tbsp olive oil

For the topping:

• 2 Tablespoons of chia Seed
• 1 Tablespoons of salt and black pepper or other toppings of your choice - sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic, onion, etc...

Directions

• Preheat oven to 180 C / 375 F
• Mix the chia seeds and water in a 2 cup glass measuring cup and let sit for 10 minutes 
• Put all the dry ingredients in your food processor or mixer and blend for a few minutes
• Add the extra cup of water and olive oil to the chia and water and mix you made above
• Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients in the food processor and mix well

• Prepare a bowl with room temperature water that is big enough to put your hands in
• Prepare two baking trays covered in parchment/baking paper or a silicon mat
• You do not need a bagel/donut pan, but can opt to use one, I preferred the bagels that were not made in them.
• Wet your hands to shape the dough into bagel shapes 
• I made bagel shape, stick shape and one small 'bagel bite'

• Once you have them all laid out, you can add toppings as you desire - chia seeds, salt, garlic, onion, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, whatever you fancy.
• Let them sit on the counter for about 30 minutes before putting them in the oven
• Bake for 12-15 minutes depending on your oven.
• Enjoy on their own or with your favorite bagel combinations!

Helpful Hints
Form them by hand, with very wet hands.
Bake on a metal tray with parchment paper, not silicon tray.
After you bake them, once they cool, slice them and freeze them right away.
Then, when you want a yummy gluten free bagel, you can just get one from the freezer.  
This helps keep the fresh flavor for much longer.
(you can do this for bread and store bought bagels too -but ALWAYS slice first!)

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Pretty ugly, but I really had no hope these would be any good! Every shaped worked fine. My least favorite are the ones from the silicon bagel pan.

The best formed ones were made with wet hands, as you can see on the bottom left.

The outside looked pretty good, and had a nice crunch to it.

Super delicious! Will be even better next time fully loaded with cream cheese, lox, tomatoes and onion!

You can see the texture - not a Brooklyn bagel, but not bad! All the shapes came out just fine and tasted the same.

My least favorite were those made in the silicon bagel pan - the outside didn't crunch up as nicely.

The inside was not 'bagel chewy' but the tapioca flour helped a lot to get it close as you can without gluten.