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About Bagels

Category: Breads

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(3.0) by 1 users

Ingredients:

***** Not Found *****

Instructions:

What is a bagel?

A bagel is traditionally a hefty, dense ring of somewhat bland tasting
bread. But with different flours, such as rye and wheat, bagels take
on different tastes. Add raisins, blueberries, strawberries, dates
and nuts for a dessert-like bagel. Add veggies, onions, poppy seeds,
peanut butter and other ingredients for an infinite variety of taste
combinations.

The popularity of bagels is as much attributed to what you can put on
them and in them as to what you add to the unbaked dough. They are
the perfect vehicles for spreads. Most often spreads consist of a
cream cheese base that may be mixed with salmon or lox, fruits,
vegetables and spices -- in myriad combinations. There are regional
differences in how bagels are made, and ongoing arguments about what
constitutes the "perfect" bagel and best spread combination.

The traditional bagel sandwich consists of cream cheese, lox, a slice
of onion and a slice of tomato. But that's only the beginning. Bagel
sandwiches are so popular that bagel bakeries often list 40 or 50
sandwich variations on their menus. then there are mini bagels and
bialys. For catered bagel brunches, there are 3- to 6- pound bagels
that are filled and then cut into pie shaped wedges.

Bagels have a lot going for them. They don't crush or smash while
being carried; they don't melt from the heat or suffer from freezing.
They're at their optimum goodness when fresh and hot from out of the
oven, but they're delicious, too, even when frozen, thawed and
toasted. If they get stale, they can be made into bagel chips or
ground into bread crumbs. They're an all-around convenient, no-waste
food product that is well suited to today's health conscious
consumers.

The plain water bagel is low in calories compared to other traditional
breakfast foods. Estimates as to the number of calories in a bagel
differ, and its size is a factor. Most bagels weigh 4 to 5 ounces,
and tally up to between 150 to 200 calories. The addition of nuts,
raisins, berries, chocolate chips and other ingredients will add to
the count. I saw a cracked wheat bagel in a health food store that
had 320 calories. Some bagels weigh 6 ounces. Mini bagels may be 1 to
3 ounces, so the calories vary accordingly.

It's the toppings and spreads that shoot up the calorie tab, though
this can be tempered by using light and fat-free cheeses, and spreads
without cheese. A whopping dollop of cream cheese slapped onto each
half of a bagel (2 tablespoons of cream cheese have 10 grams of fat
and 100 calories) will wipe out the innocence of the plain bagel. Two
tablespoons of regular preserves (there are sugar free varieties,
too) can add on 50 calories but no fat. And peanut butter? Well, you
would rather not know, if you're counting calories and grams of fat.

Still, you're better off with bagels than with a doughnut, which has
176 calories and 11 grams of fat. A homemade bran muffin (not the
giant restaurant or bakery size) has 112 calories and 5 grams of fat.
A large croissant has 300 calories, 17 grams of fat and 85 milligrams
of cholesterol. The butter will do it every time. There is no butter
in a bagel recipe. Only egg bagels have cholesterol; even that can be
eliminated using egg whites instead of a whole egg (or 1/4 cup liquid
egg substitute). But a sweet roll with nut and raisin Danish filing,
and icing, can top them all with about 360 calories, 2.3 grams of fat
and 82.2 milligrams of cholesterol.

The Best Bagels are made at home Donna Z. Meilach ISBN 1-55867-131-5

Carolyn Shaw April 1996 From: Homenet Cook