Thursday, 20 July 2023

Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl Bagels

Oh my goodness, I love bagels. I've shared many of my favorite bagels, but I'm always interested in trying new things and coming up with fun new twists. While these may look like pumpernickel and rye, these are, in fact, chocolate and vanilla swirl bagels. Absolutely delicious toasted with cream cheese. They're a bit tricky to pipe, but not too difficult. And you end up with such cute bagels at the end of it! Yum! Enjoy!

Swirled GF chocolate-vanilla bagels.

These are so fun and delicious - and they only use honey plus the little bit of sugar in the mini chocolate chips to sweeten. Bonus!

Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl Bagels

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix together gently, and set aside to rise until puffy:

1 1/4 cup warm water

6 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp rapid-rise/quick yeast

In a large bowl, whisk together: (It's important to mix dry ingredients separately in GF baking to avoid clumping)

2 cups tapioca starch

1 1/2 cup brown rice flour

6 Tbsp potato starch

1 Tbsp xanthan gum

1 1/2 tsp salt

In a mixer combine:

3 eggs

6 Tbsp oil

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

yeast mixture, from above

flour mixture, from above

Beat on low, just to combine, then beat on medium to medium-high for 2-3 minutes, until nice and smooth.

Remove half the batter, and put it in a large freezer ziploc. (If you feel confident, you can try to place the dough along one half of the ziploc, and then you'd add the chocolate dough along the other side. You want to end up with half and half batter in a large freezer ziploc. The method I describe here uses extra freezer ziplocs to more confidently ensure you have the batter half and half in the final bag before piping your swirled bagels.)

In the remaining batter, add and mix 45-60 seconds, scraping down the mixer a few times:

1/4 cup dark cocoa powder

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1 Tbsp milk or water, to help thin the batter a bit since you're adding cocoa powder

Place the chocolate batter in another freezer ziploc.

Snip the corners ~1" off each of the bags. Place them side by side into corner of a new large freezer ziploc. As evenly as you can, squeeze the batters into the new freezer ziploc so you have a half and half bag of dough. Cut 1/2" - 1" from the corner of your new bag.

Half and half batter, ready to pipe swirl bagels.

Pipe the swirl bagels onto the prepared parchment paper, twist/turn your ziploc bag as you pipe each circle, to help get add more swirl into your half and half bagels. The batter is thick to pipe, so be patient. You may find it's helpful to double bag your batter if your bags aren't strong.

Piped onto two trays.You can see some messy piping, but that's okay, because you can smooth it out with warm water.

You can use warm water to help shape and smooth the tops and sides of your bagels. I usually stretch them out a bit.

Use hands to brush/wipe warm water onto the bagels. You can also help reshape them or smooth them, as needed. Let the bagels rise ~30 - 40 minutes in a warm location, until puffed, but not quite doubled. I find I usually end up piping 2 trays of bagels with approx 10 per tray. It's not an exact science and making GF bagels is definitely a bit more finicky than when you can roll and shape by hand.

Risen bagels!

Ready to bake!

Bake bagels at 350 F for about 25-30 minutes, until the vanilla part of your bagel is a nice golden brown. Remove to cooling racks. Enjoy with cream cheese for a yummy treat!