Cinnamon Crunch Bagels
Perfectly tender, chewy and sweetly spiced, it’s no wonder these cinnamon crunch bagels are a Panera favorite.
Every cheer practice during 6th grade, our coach would try to get us excited about our 7 am practices by bringing Panera. The cinnamon crunch bagels were always the first ones to go, you had to be quick. I remember all the cool girls each had a vanilla bean Frappuccino from Starbucks, too.
Every once in a while, I’ll make an unnecessary trip to both Panera and Starbucks for just exactly that. There are things I like better at Starbucks, but those cinnamon crunch bagels are always at the top of my pyramid.
Starter
These aren’t sourdough, but you still use a starter to make them, just a different type! It sounds intimidating, but it’s super easy to do! Simply combine flour, a tiny bit of yeast and salt to your stand mixer bowl and add some water. Knead it for a few minutes until it becomes a little ball of dough, and let it rest for up to 14 hours.
While you usually don’t knead a starter, this one isn’t liquidy or sour like most starters.
I like to give it the full 14 hours, but you can proceed with the recipe after as little as 4 hours. The longer you allow the starter to sit, the better your bagels will be. Using it lends a pleasantly yeasty taste to the bagels without tasting overly fermented. (This is a great method from King Arthur Flour!)
Making the dough
After the starter is ready to use, add all of the remaining dough ingredients to the bowl and use a stiff spatula to bring them somewhat together. I make sure to scrape up all the starter from the bottom of the bowl and get everything into a very shaggy ball.
From there, you’re going to want to use a mixer and a dough hook. Kneading a stiff bagel dough by hand will take you upwards of 15 minutes, and that’s more forearm strength than I have. My 7 quart mixer does the job in 8 minutes, but it can take up to 10, depending on how powerful your machine is.
You want smooth, slightly tacky and elastic dough that clings to the hook and bowl just a little. It should still remove without leaving much behind, if anything. Allow the dough to proof until doubled – it should take around 2 hours. My kitchen was colder, so it was 2 and a half.
Pre-Shaping
Before making the holes, each dough ball needs to have a tight, smooth surface. The technique for achieving this can be tricky to master, but once you have it down, it’s there to stay. Since this technique is tough to explain with words, check out the visual aids below.
After dividing the dough into 6 equal parts, fold down the ends of each dough piece to the middle of one side and pinch them closed. This creates a somewhat smooth ball with one tacky side. The slight tackiness helps with the next step.
Place the dough ball with the tacky seam side down, and make a “C” shape with your palm so that the inside cup of the “C” faces the dough. Rest your hand on the counter so that your hand just touches the dough. The pinky side of your hand should be against the dough ball and the rest of your hand should angle just slightly away from it.
Applying slight pressure, use your cupped hand to draw the dough ball across the counter in a circular motion, towards your body. The dough should be tacky where you pinched the folds together, which will cause the tension when the ball moves over the counter. The shape and position of your hand helps by holding that underside mostly in place while also pushing the ball. This creates the surface tension.
If the dough is so sticky that it won’t tighten, use a very light dusting of flour and continue trying. Just be careful not to add too much, or the dough will just slide without tightening. If that happens, use a damp kitchen towel to clean the flour from the counter.
Creating the bagel shapes
The first mistake I made when I made these the first time was not making the holes large enough. I should have known that if I only stretched the dough 2 inches, that there would be NO holes after the bagels were baked. The first batch made for delicious cinnamon bread rolls.
Shape the bagel dough into large rings by poking your finger into the center. Wiggle your finger down until you break through the dough and create a hole. Stretch each bagel so that the space expands. The holes should be no smaller than 3 inches, I made mine closer to 4. After proofing again, boiling and baking, the holes should be 1-2 inches wide.
The shaped bagels will rest until slightly puffy, and while they do, you can preheat the oven!
Water bath
Boiling the bagels before baking them is non-negotiable if you want that shiny bagel exterior and a deliciously chewy interior. Ideally, you’d add barley malt syrup to the water, but most people don’t have that on hand. But you know what you probably DO have? Honey! It works just as well. The resulting bagels are the perfect texture.
Topping
Cinnamon and more cinnamon. These are cinnamon crunch bagels, after all. If you don’t have any, grab some coarse sparkling sugar. It’s worth the special buy! The coarse sugar also goes into the cinnamon/brown sugar topping that goes on each bagel.
Another ingredient that I strongly recommend are these cinnamon bits. You can make these bagels without them, but I really like maxing out on the cinnamon. They create little pockets of melted cinnamon sugar filling, and also make the perfect topping!
Shelf life & storage
Unfortunately, these bagels don’t last very long after being baked. They truly are the best about an hour out of the oven, even up to three hours. After that, you can wrap them in foil and reheat them in the oven at 350 degrees until they’re warmed through.
Cinnamon crunch bagels should be enjoyed within 2 days. Do not freeze the baked bagels! The topping will get sticky and gooey as they thaw.
Cinnamon Crunch Bagels
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Starter Prep + Rise Time: 17 hours + 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 17 hours + 50 minutes
- Yield: 6 bagels 1x
- Category: Brunch, Sweet
- Method: Stovetop, Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
Tender and chewy and stuffed with cinnamon, these bagels are the perfect breakfast treat! Adapted from King Arthur Flour.
Ingredients
To make the starter:
- 1 cup bread flour
- 1/8 tsp salt
- Pinch of instant yeast (1/16th of a teaspoon)
- 1/3 cup lukewarm tap water
For the dough:
- 3/4 cup warm water (100-105 degrees)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 TB brown sugar, packed
- 3/4 tsp instant yeast
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- all the starter
- 1/3 cup cinnamon bits
For boiling the bagels:
- 4 cups water
- 2 TB honey
To make the topping and bake:
- 1 large egg
- 1 TB water
- 3 TB coarse sparkling sugar, divided
- 1 TB brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 TB granulated sugar
- 1 TB all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp butter, melted
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup cinnamon bits
Instructions
To make the starter:
- The day before (12-14 hours) you intend to bake the bagels, make the starter. Combine the flour, salt, yeast and water in a stand mixer bowl and stir with a stiff spatula to create a shaggy dough. Turn the starter out onto the countertop (don’t use any additional flour) and knead for a few minutes to bring everything together. The starter will be tacky.
- Place the starter back into the mixer bowl, cover with a kitchen towel, and allow to rest at room temperature for 12-14 hours.
Make the dough:
- Add the water, vanilla, brown sugar, yeast, salt, cinnamon and bread flour to the starter in the stand mixer bowl. Do not add the cinnamon bits yet.
- Use a stiff spatula or wooden spoon to scrape the starter off of the bottom of the bowl and mix it in with everything else, just until a somewhat shaggy dough begins to form.
- Use the dough hook on medium low speed to knead the dough until it’s smooth, elastic and slightly tacky. This will take anywhere from 8-10 minutes, depending on your mixer. The minimum time will be 8 minutes to properly form the gluten structure in the dough.
- After 6 minutes, add the cinnamon bits and finish the kneading time.
- Add the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm, draft free place until doubled, about 2 1/2 hours.
- After the dough has doubled, deflate it by turning it out onto a very lightly floured surface. Divide into 6 equal pieces.
- Create a ball by folding in the edges to the center of a piece of dough. Pinch the seam shut and set aside. The seam side will be tacky. Repeat with the remaining pieces. (See in post visual aid for help)
- Place the dough ball on the counter with the tacky seam side down, and make a “C” shape with your palm so that the inside cup of the “C” faces the dough. Rest your hand on the counter so that your hand just touches the dough. The pinky side of your hand should be against the dough ball and the rest of your hand should angle just slightly away from it.
- Applying slight pressure, use your cupped hand to draw the dough ball across the counter, towards your body in a circular motion. The dough will be tacky where you pinched the folds together, which will cause the tension when the ball moves over the counter, creating the tight, smooth surface. The shape and position of your hand helps by holding that underside mostly in place while also pushing the ball.
- If the dough is so sticky that it won’t tighten, use a very light dusting of flour and continue trying. Just be careful not to add too much, or the dough will just slide without tightening. If that happens, use a damp kitchen towel to clean the flour from the counter. You may go back and forth a few times until you find the right balance of flour to clean countertop.
- Place the pre shaped dough balls to a lightly floured or greased baking sheet, cover with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, create the holes in each bagel by poking a floured finger into the center of a dough ball. Stretch each ball into a ring shape, creating a hole between 3-4 inches wide. Set the shaped bagel back onto the baking sheet and repeat with the remaining bagels.
- After the bagels have all been shaped, cover them again and allow them to rest for 30 minutes. During this resting time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, prepare the water bath and get the toppings ready.
To boil, top and bake:
- Add the 4 cups of water and 2 TB honey to a large, wide pot and bring to a boil over high heat. I used a 5 quart Dutch oven and it worked perfectly. As the water warms up, stir occasionally to dissolve the honey.
- Beat the egg and water together in a small bowl, making sure most of the white has been blended in. Set aside.
- Add 1 TB of the coarse sparkling sugar, all of the brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour and cinnamon to a small bowl and stir to combine. Mix the melted butter and vanilla together and stir into the sugar mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- Separate the remaining 2 TB coarse sugar and 1/2 cup cinnamon bits into small bowls.
- Keep the small bowls of egg wash, cinnamon crumble topping, sparkling sugar and cinnamon bits grouped close together and within reach for easy grabbing.
- After the shaped bagels have rested for 30 minutes and the water bath is boiling, add two or three bagels at a time to the bath and boil for 1 minute. Flip the bagels and boil for another minute before removing from the bath to a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat for the remaining bagels and carefully remove the water bath from the heat.
- Brush the boiled bagels with egg wash and sprinkle the cinnamon crumble evenly over the tops. Follow with some of the cinnamon bits, and finally a generous sprinkle of the coarse sugar. Do your best to divide all of the toppings (except the egg wash) evenly among the bagels to use it all up. Some of it will get onto the parchment, that’s ok.
- Bake the bagels in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before serving warm.
Reheating instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and wrap each bagel in foil. Warm wrapped bagels in the oven for 20-25 minutes until hot and soft.
- Use up leftover bagels within 2 days. Do not freeze baked bagels, or the crunchy topping will get gummy when they thaw.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 bagel with crunch topping
- Calories: 537
- Sugar: 35.6 g
- Sodium: 15.2 mg
- Fat: 11.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 6.2 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 97.7 g
- Fiber: 4.2 g
- Protein: 13.1 g
- Cholesterol: 31.8 mg
