To Steam ♨️ or Not to Steam . . .

“To steam or not to steam THAT is the question !” Remember this famous quote from Shakespeare ? Me neither because he obviously never said that 😁!

I go hard at places that steam-bake their bagels and for good reason. Steaming is a baking/cooking technique that is an entirely different kind of cooking process compared to boiling. Think of it as break-dancing compared to salsa dancing. ‘Yes’ technically they’re both dancing but it doesn’t take a seasoned-eyed judge from Dancing With the Stars to see that they are worlds apart in styles and function. The same can be said for boiling vs steaming. Each has its place and each has its functions but trying to swap one for the other renders a catastrophic mistake.

As it was mentioned in yesterday’s post boiling the dough (bagel) blimps first is non-negotiable. Skipping or side-stepping this step is like removing the chocolate chips from chocolate chips cookies. You no longer have a chocolate chip cookie . . . merely a cookie. Except in this instance when you bypass the boiling step in making the bagel and merely steam and bake concurrently the dough undergoes a completely different transformation. You literally get something ‘other than’ a bagel. It’s a Frankenbagel. A faux-bagel.

Transformation is what we’re after but only under very specific sequential conditions. Yes we want steam. Yes we want to bake. Yes we want the dough to be transformed by water and heat but under very specific guided terms. Let’s be clear I’m not part of some elusive rabid anti-steam reddit forum looking for an anti-steam uprising (sounds like the worst social movement ever!) But I am anti-steam when it is being used to bypass the boiling stage for the sake of efficiency and mass production to foist upon an unsuspecting public a faux bagel. Then I am!

What occurs at many of these local vendors or national chains is they possess some very expensive commercial ovens. Those ovens are engineered with steam nozzles that inject steam into the oven chamber while the bake is occurring. It’s quite genius in fact. Steam is the principle means in which a bagel gets its rise or “oven spring”. It’s what makes it plump and amazing!

But if steam is used as the lone mechanism for oven spring and baking the bagel dough itself actually bakes differently which results in that crummy crumb! You know what I’m talking about. When you go to bite into your bagel expecting that amazing outer layer of crispy crunch that protects that dreamy interior world of dense-yet-chewy amazingness only to be met with what amounts to is a round-roll-with-a-hole. It’s because essentially that is what it has become. But worse than that is you’re expected to believe the grand deception that what you’re actually eating is, in fact, a bagel! The blasphemy !! 😂

So I’m here to set the record straight and get us back to bagel Nirvana! 🦦