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1 cup water (235 ml)

5 cups whole wheat flour (730 g)

2 ¼ teaspoons salt (12 g)

1 ¼ cup water (300 ml)

⅓ cup malt syrup (80 ml)

1 gallon boiling water (4 l)

Fun to make, good to eat.

Soften the yeast in the warm water.

Dissolve the 2 tablespoons of malt syrup in 1 cup of water.

Mix the flour and salt. Add the yeast mixture and the malt mixture, and enough of the additional 1 ¼ cup water to make a fairly stiff dough.

Let this dough rise until double, covered to protect it from drying out. Put the water on to boil and dissolve the ⅓ cup malt in it.

Grease a 12″ 18″ cookie sheet, or 2 smaller ones.

Form the risen dough into three big balls. Round each one, and let it rest until relaxed. Shape into bagels by this easy but very untraditional method.

Flatten the balls one by one, and cut into four pieces. Shape each piece into a ball (round it by rolling under your cupped hand). Let the balls rest briefly and then poke your thumb through their middles, twirling each new bagel on your thumb to enlarge the hole until it (the hole) is about 1 ½ inches in diameter. Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Let each bagel rest for about 5 minutes, then place it in the boiling malted water. Cook 2 or 3 at a time, and adjust the heat so that the water is simmering all the time. The bagels will sink, then rise in a few seconds—if they don’t sink, they rested too long. No harm done, just turn over so that both sides get wet. After a minute in the water, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them an inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at once, about 35 minutes, turning the bagels over at the halfway point if they haven’t browned evenly.

FANCY BAGELS: use sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sautéed minced onion (with or without garlic), caraway seeds. Either dip the boiled but unbaked bagel in the topping and place on cookie sheet with the coated side down or wash the tops of the bagels before baking with a mixture of ½ beaten egg and 2 tablespoons water, then sprinkle with the chosen garnish. The wash makes even ungarnished bagels shiny and pretty.

Pocket Bread (Pita)

In the last few years these nifty little breads have become a staple item, and they are available nearly everywhere. A balloon of crispy-soft bread, they are good for filling with anything to make a sandwich, whether it is the traditional falafel and sliced cucumbers, or more mundane things like soyspread and sprouts. Pita is tasty and doesn’t get soggy, and furthermore, as our favorite two-year-old said the first time his sandwich came to him in a pocket, “Mommy! It didn’t fall apart!”

Almost any plain bread dough can be used to make these, but we offer this recipe, which has been very reliable for us. Make it as it is written, or with twice the yeast and warmer water for a very fast rise. (If you go this route, you can easily have them on the table in 2 ½ hours. Keep the rising dough at 90°F.

SHAPING

Once the dough has risen, the rolling and shaping are easy; the trick is in getting the baking just right. The breads actually cook inside from the steam they generate as they puff in the oven, so they don’t brown much on top. Depending on your oven, it may take a little experimentation to adjust the heat and paraphernalia to make sure that the pockets get enough bottom heat that they puff, but not so much that they burn.

BAKING

If you have a gas stove, you can bake pita on the floor of the oven or on a heavy cookie sheet (not Teflon) on the oven floor. Preheat the cookie sheet along with the oven. Electric stoves are trickier. It’s best to heat the oven from the bottom only, so in Laurel’s Kitchen we suggested snapping the top heating element out. Then we received an angry letter from a woman who had been making the bread for her dinner party, and in snapping out the top element, had blown out her stove’s electrical system. If your top element is not made to snap out, leave it in. Try shielding the baking pockets from top heat by putting another cookie sheet on the very top rack under the top element. A