Bagels, bagels, oh baby!

This bread-baking stuff never ceases to amaze me.

Get this: Bagels aren't born in those plastic bags you find at the supermarket.

You can actually -- gasp! -- make them at home. And they will blow your mind -- even if you can find good, bakery bagels in your 'hood.

And if you're used to eating those dried-up, doughy, plastic-wrapped bagels, you just might shake your fists to the heavens, enraged that you've been calling that spongy crud "bagels" all this time.

These, my friends, are bagels.

So, this is recipe No. 3 of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge,

I'd never made bagels before, but I've always loved them. So I had high hopes for this recipe. I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint.

You start out making a very stiff dough. Very stiff. We learned at school that bagel dough is referred to as "bucky," meaning it's pretty tough and not very elastic. Some of my fellow bread-baking Twitter-ers (follow us #BBA) had warned that stand mixers can't handle this dough. But not my shiny, new Kitchenaid pro. I'm so proud of her muscles.

Here are some of the little guys, after shaping. (Reinhart offers two shaping methods for bagels. Either poke your thumb in the middle of a dough ball and stretch. Or, form a long snake and attach the ends. I chose the thumb-poking technique. Easy-peasy.)

Did you know bagels are boiled before baking? You probably did. That's what gives them that wonderfully chewy exterior. About a minute on each side and they're ready for a hot oven.

First, though, comes the most-important decision of all: How to top your precious creations. I turned to Twitter for advice and decided to make a few of each suggestion. These are topped with sesame seeds mixed with a little Kosher salt. (Go easy on the salt. I went a little crazy on some.)

I also topped a few with plain Kosher salt. I baked the rest without any toppings. But when they came out of the oven, I brushed them with melted butter and dunked half in Parmesan and the other half in cinnamon-sugar. I stuck the Parmesan ones back in the hot oven for a minute to brown up.

And, then, I realized it was breakfast time. I had a pile of fresh, hot, homemade bagels. And I was out of cream cheese.

But I did have leftover melted butter. And a pastry brush. It was already dirty, after all. And I may have stood at the counter brushing my fresh sesame bagel with melted butter while dunking it in leftover cinnamon sugar. I may have done that. Or I may have had fat-free cottage cheese and dashed out for a 10-mile run. Yes, I may have done that, too. Choose to believe whatever you like.

As mentioned earlier, we're not posting recipes since we're baking everything in Reinhart's book. But the lovely and talented Deb at SmittenKitchen wrote a lengthy post about those bagels, with recipe, nearly two years ago.

I'm submitting this one to Yeastspotting. If you like to look at bread porn, check it out!