Bagels

Name: Bagels
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Jewish
Ingredients: Strong white bread flour; Water; Fresh yeast; Caster sugar; Salt; Barley malt syrup for dough; Barley malt syrup for boiling water; Sesame seeds

280 kcal a serving, against 484 for the traditional version. That is 204 kcal off, or 42%, with 7.7g of protein. Serves 6. 2 hours plus rising.

What the traditional version is

Proper bagels mean strong white flour, a good hit of yeast, malt syrup in the dough and the boiling water for shine, and a long, fierce bake. The classic dough is kneaded hard, left to rise, shaped into rings, boiled for under a minute (usually with malt or honey), then baked till the crust is dark and the insides are dense. They're bigger than you think - about 120g each, perfect for a triple-decker salt beef monument.

What changed, and what each change costs

Downsized each bagel from 120g dough to 70g dough

The only honest way to cut what bagels cost your waistline and get more protein per bite is to shrink them. So instead of the usual bakery monsters, you get moderate rings that still chew well and crisp up nicely.

What it costs you. You can't stuff in a mountain of salt beef and pickles. Smaller bagels make for meaner sandwiches. You'll probably want two.

Halved the malt syrup in the boiling water

The glossy crust is nice, but that much malt syrup does little for the flavour. Halving it still gives you a decent shine and slight sweetness, but saves sugar.

What it costs you. The bagels are a little paler and not quite as malty-sweet as the bakery versions. If you're a crust obsessive, you'll spot it. Most people won't care.

Kept the same flour, salt, water, yeast and a touch of sugar

There's no real substitute for the flour - use anything weaker and you lose the chew. No protein gains or savings by swapping those.

What it costs you. You get the same essential bagel, just smaller.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Strong white bread flour
Water
Fresh yeast
Caster sugar
Salt
Barley malt syrup for dough
Barley malt syrup for boiling water
Sesame seeds

How it starts

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl.
Cover and let it rise in a warm place for an hour or until doubled.
Put them on a baking tray, cover and let them rise for 20 minutes.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish Jewish.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	484	280
Protein	13.2g	7.7g
Fat	2.7g	1.5g
Saturated fat	0.4g	0.2g
Carbohydrate	100g	57.9g
Protein per 100 kcal	2.7g	2.7g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish Jewish prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

Allergens. gluten, sesame.

The method is in the book

These are bagels for people who want restraint forced on them. The smaller size means you'll eat two, but get less of a carb bomb. You can't fill them with enough cold cuts to block a small river, but they're chewy, shiny and recognisably bagel. If you want bakery scale, you'll need a bakery oven and bigger trousers. For a weekday breakfast or a snack with salmon, these pull their weight.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish Jewish, along with 51 more. Buy the paperback