Bagels Lab150 recipes

Bagels Lab · Calculator

Design your own bagels

The sliders start at the typical batch: the median of 150 recipes for each ingredient, in grams per 100 g of flour. Move any of them within the range that 90% of recipes use (the 5th to the 95th percentile) and the grams update, with where your choice sits among the recipes and what that ingredient does.

This scales ratios; it is not a tested recipe. Each ingredient moves on its own against the flour, and a combination no recipe uses may not bake the way you expect. For the method, pan and oven, follow the real recipes nearest your numbers.

Flour

500 g, about 4 cups, makes one typical batch.

Start from a recipe

Grams per 100 g of flour

  1. 295 g · 59%about 1 1/4 cups

    In the middle: 50% of recipes use more, 50% less.

    Bagel dough is stiff, far drier than most bread, which gives the dense, chewy crumb.

  2. 20 g · 4%about 1 1/2 tbsp

    In the middle: 49% of recipes use more, 44% less.

    Barley malt syrup or sugar feeds the yeast and browns the crust; cinnamon-sugar bagels sit at the top. The boiling-water malt is counted as an extra.

  3. 10 g · 1.9%

    In the middle: 48% of recipes use more, 48% less.

    About 2% of the flour.

  4. 6 g · 1.1%

    In the middle: 48% of recipes use more, 46% less.

    Less yeast and an overnight cold rise is the New York route to flavor; sourdough bagels use starter and no commercial yeast.

Your bagels

Your bagels in grams, with approximate volumes
IngredientGrams
Flour500 gabout 4 cups
Watermilk, buttermilk, yogurt, cream and water295 gabout 1 1/4 cups
Malt or sugarwhite sugar, brown sugar, honey and syrups20 gabout 1 1/2 tbsp
Salt10 g
Yeast6 g
Total831 g

831 g in all from 500 g of flour, counting only the groups above.

Closest real recipe: Bagels met zongedroogde tomaat (rutgerbakt.nl).

BakeThe median of 128 recipes is 425°F (220°C), most for 18 to 24 minutes at their own size. A bigger or smaller batch, or a different pan, changes the time.

The 3 real recipes nearest your numbers

Measured on water, malt or sugar, salt and yeast at once. These are published, tested recipes: follow one for its method, pan and timing, or load its percentages and adjust from there.

  1. 1

    Bagels met zongedroogde tomaat · rutgerbakt.nl

    water 60% · malt or sugar 4% · salt 2% · yeast 1.4%

  2. 2

    Rozijn-kaneel bagels recept · rutgerbakt.nl

    water 60% · malt or sugar 4% · salt 2% · yeast 1.4%

  3. 3

    Zelf bagels maken – recept · rutgerbakt.nl

    water 60% · malt or sugar 4% · salt 2% · yeast 1.4%

How the calculator works

Every recipe is reduced to baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient group per 100 g of flour. The starting point is the median of all 150 recipes for each group separately, so no single recipe is exactly the starting batch. Grams are your flour weight times each percentage, rounded to the nearest 5 g above 50 g and the nearest gram or half gram below.

“More than 80% of recipes” counts the recipes with strictly less of that ingredient per gram of flour. The nearest recipes are measured on every ingredient at once, each scaled by how much recipes vary on it, so a wide-ranging ingredient does not outweigh a narrow one.

Only the groups listed are counted. Vanilla, spices, mix-ins and toppings are left out unless they have their own slider. Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.