Anadama Bagels. Photo courtesy of Kenyon M. King

My great-grandmother, for whom I was named, was a baker. When I began baking seriously in my teens, my mother told me it was as if her spirit had suddenly possessed me in a flurry of flour and yeast. Other than this long-gone great-grandmother, we were not a baking family. My father is the kind of brilliant cook who never needs a recipe, but that attitude doesn’t lend itself to baking — he killed the sourdough starter I gave him because he refused to follow instructions and instead went with what “felt right,” which often included feeding it beer or putting it outside on a warm day as if it were a dog seeking a sunbeam for a nap.

Therefore, I began baking mostly by impulse and fearless ignorance. I didn’t know what was meant to be difficult and what was easy, so I tried whatever looked good to me. My favorite cake recipe at the time was an orange chiffon cake — I had no idea, as a novice baker, that chiffon cakes could be tricky; I just did it anyway. And, whether by pure baking instinct or the ghost of my great-grandmother, it worked, and the cake became a regular part of my repertoire.

I branched out into baking bread in order to save money as a broke college student. I had one simple recipe, and I would make a batch every four days, split the dough into four bâtards, bake one and freeze the rest. For the next three mornings, I’d wake early and bake my small daily loaf from frozen first thing in the morning.

The great secret of bread is that even if you are just learning and aren’t particularly good at it yet, a fresh loaf hot from your own oven tastes better than the fanciest artisan loaf you can buy. Looking back, I’m sure my first loaves weren’t technically very good — for one thing, I always pulled them from the oven when they were still just lightly tanned rather than deeply burnished, so afraid of burning my daily bread. Still, there may be no greater bread experience in my life than one of those hot little loaves torn open and spread with peanut butter, warming my freezing hands as I walked the long mile through dark winter mornings to my early class.

It took years to deviate from my simple recipe and method. Now, a decade later, I rarely use a recipe when I make bread for my small household. Our daily bread is an ever-changing experiment of different flours, fats and liquids: sourdough, focaccia, brioche, olive-stuffed loaves, sweet yeasted desserts, flatbreads, seed crusts and Viennoiserie. And bagels.

Adapting my anadama dough into bagels was my husband’s suggestion, and his idea led to my new favorite bagels. Coarsely textured, deeply flavored and only mildly sweet, these bagels are the perfect application for the relatively dense Anadama dough. New York and Montreal can keep theirs; here’s my New England bagel.

ANADAMA BAGELS

You can either knead this dough by hand or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. If using a mixer, knead on a low speed for 6-8 minutes once all flour and water is properly incorporated, and be slow and careful as you add the water, as it is easy to add too much.

Yield: 10 bagels

1/4 cup cornmeal
3 ½ cups bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tablespoon molasses
2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1  1/3 cup water
Oil for greasing pans
2 tablespoons barley malt (or more molasses)
1 teaspoon baking soda

Combine the cornmeal, flour, molasses, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl, taking care not to add the salt directly on top of the yeast. Add (most) of the water and, using your hand or a dough whisk or wooden spoon, mix until roughly combined. Slowly add as much of the remaining water is needed, a little at a time, mixing after each addition, until you have a rough dough. You may not need to use all of the water.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 8-10 minutes until the surface of the dough ball is smooth.

Lightly grease a large bowl, transfer the dough to the bowl, and let it rise for at least an hour, until doubled in size. Line two baking trays with silicon baking mats or parchment paper.

Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball: Press each flat with the heel of your hand, pinching the edges together, then flip the piece and roll it loosely against the counter with your hand cupped to seal the seam. Use your thumb to pierce a hole through the center of each dough ball, then gently ease the hole wider, rotating the dough in your hands to make a smooth ring. If the hole shrinks back too rapidly, let the dough balls rest for about 5 minutes, then resume shaping.

Once the bagels are shaped, place them onto the prepared trays, cover loosely and let rise for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and arrange the racks to upper-middle and lower-middle.

Bring a large pot of water to boil — you want to be able to easily access the inside, so choose a dutch oven or saucier pan instead of a stock pot. Add the barley malt or additional molasses and the baking soda to the water, and reduce the heat from a rolling boil to a strong simmer.

Gently drop the bagels into the water — the number you can do at a time will depend on the size of your pot; make sure they have space. Cook for 30 seconds, then flip each with a slotted spoon and cook for another 30 seconds. Return the boiled bagels to the trays and continue until you’ve boiled the entire batch.

Bake the bagels for 20-25 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through so they bake evenly. Remove to a wire rack and let cool.

MEET THE COOK: Kenyon M. King

Photo courtesy of Kenyon M. King

I am a home cook and baker from East Boothbay. I cook for myself and my husband every day, and bake bread as fast as we can go through it. Much of my cooking heritage comes from my Italian father, who never uses a recipe and was the main cook in our family when I was growing up.

I consider myself fearless when it comes to exploring different cultures and types of cuisine, but I retain my father’s Italian sensibility: Source the best ingredients you can and use them simply but well. Famed Italian cooking expert Marcella Hazan said that the wonderful thing about Italian food is there is no haute cuisine: “All roads lead to the home.” I wholeheartedly agree.

I like unfussy presentations and using whole ingredients, particularly straight from my garden. I don’t shy away from challenging techniques, but I like my flavors clean and distinctive (in my opinion, no sandwich can beat a fresh summer tomato slice on sourdough with a bit of salt). And I believe in abundance — in feeding whoever walks through your door and ensuring that no one leaves hungry.