Cherry Pie, Episode 3--Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients

*** 1/24/2017
Accompanying video segments now available at YouTube—
"Cherry Pie—Section 1 of 3, Overview and Fruit Filling Preparation"
"Cherry Pie—Section 2 of 3, Pie Dough Preparation"
"Cherry Pie—Section 3 of 3, Pie Assembly and Baking"
Playlist: "Cherry Pie (Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients, All Three Sections"

The writeup is finally here! It deviates from my usual recipe articles of including imperative steps, which could make this article REALLY long and maybe more difficult to follow than going to my video(s). The process has two separate stages and the convergence stage: fruit filling preparation, pie dough preparation, and pie assembly/baking. Although the number of ingredients are few, the processes require time, timing, and order. If you try this recipe, you should first read the article and view the video (three sections) thoroughly.

The ingredients are few:

• Cherry pie filling: 1 pound frozen cherries, 1 C granulated sugar, 1/4 C cornstarch, 1/2 C water
• Pie crust: 2 1/4 C flour, 1 T powdered sugar (granulated ok), 3/4 t salt, up to 3/4 C water

Historically, for recipes I've posted, I've listed required equipment. In this case, because bakers' tool preferences can vary widely, the video sections provide the best visual guidelines. The following actions are a few examples of deviating from traditional pie-making norms.

• For the pie filling, I coated frozen cherries and granulated sugar in a bowl, chilling them overnight and occasionally stirring to get the cherries to juice up. The cherries bag includes thawing instructions that might speed up the process. Some people prefer fresh cherries that they de-stem and pit. Others use canned or jar cherries, which require different processes.
• For mixing of pie dough ingredients, I used a tilt-head stand mixer for ease. In the past, I have used a pastry blender. Some people prefer to use two forks.
• For cutting the butter, I used a combination of french fry cutter and butter knife. I've seen videos for various butter shapes from pat slices to butter cube in its entirety.
• For rolling out of pie dough, I used a Joseph rolling pin on a cutting board. Other bakers use various rolling pins and work surfaces.
• For fruit pie venting, required for steam escape during baking, I latticed the top crust using a pizza cutter and an inverted cooling rack. (Numerous sites show different methodologies for latticing.) Typical top crusts have slits, which are faster to implement.

One picture is worth a thousand words, and the video is worth a lot more. The entire video turns out to be 2.5G and 26:10 long. To make upload more manageable, I split it into sections 1, 2, and 3. You can view them as a playlist or as standalone segments. Title screens within the sections display text for preparing the fruit filling, preparing the pie dough, and assembling the pie and baking it.

Video Section Title: Cherry Pie (Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients)
Section 1, Overview and Fruit Filling Preparation

1. Processing the frozen cherries
2. Fruit mix overnight
3. Draining the cherries
4. Mixing cornstarch and water for making the fruit sauce
5. Cooking the cornstarch and sauce together
6. Folding the cooked sauce into the cherries

Video Section Title: Cherry Pie (Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients)
Section 2, Pie Dough Preparation

1. Pie crust ingredients (overall intro info)
2. Measuring pie crust dry ingredients
3. Mixing the dry ingredients together
4. Cutting the butter
5. Stirring the cut butter chunks into the dry ingredients
6. Mixing water into the chilled dough
7. Preparing to chill the mixed dough for an hour
8. Retrieving the chilled dough for flouring, flattening, folding, and rotating it a few times before wrapping it for more chilling
9. Retrieving the chilled dough, dividing it, and rolling out the bottom pie crust
10. Preheating the oven for 350 degrees, flouring the surface, and rolling out the top crust

Video Section Title: Cherry Pie (Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients)
Section 3, Pie Assembly and Baking

1. Cutting the top crust dough into lattice strips
2. Pouring the cherries into the pie pan, then assembling the lattice strips
3. Brushing egg wash on unbaked pie
4. Weighing the egg-washed, unbaked pie before baking it for 30 minutes
5. Putting a pie shield on the pie after baking it for 30 minutes
6. Baking complete (60 total minutes)--moving the pie from the oven to a cooling rack
7. Revisiting latticing: Simulating cutting lattice strips differently using wax paper and pizza cutter
8. Detailed article: Cherry Pie, Episode 3--Using Frozen Cherries and Scratch Crust Ingredients http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2017/01/cherry-pie-episode-3-using-frozen.html

Future Pie Thoughts
I've made three cherry pies in the recent past. For making a more perfect pie, hopefully using less time, I'll try the following actions:

• Instead of overnight thawing of cherries and sugar, I'll try using the microwave oven, carefully monitoring and periodically stirring.
• Weigh out my two pie doughs before rolling them out. I have tended to barely cover the pan with the bottom shell, and rolled out too much dough for the top shell (lattice).
• Buy and use a pastry mat that has concentric circles as visual guides for pie shell diameters. The circles should help me stay inside the "lines". Related, for my third pie, I used an Oneida cutting board for my dough surface. It was OK, but the board slid around, even with a somewhat damp kitchen cloth. The silicone mats are reported to stay put during use. Possible candidate mats:
• "Silicone Large Pastry Mat With Measurements"
• "Joseph Joseph Silicone Non-Slip Pastry Mat with Measurements, Roll-Up, Green"
• Re-view videos about latticing the day before or the day of making a pie to refamiliarize myself with the weaving process.
• Bake the pie for 65 minutes total instead of 60. The bottom shells were cooked, but still a little pale.

Visit blog articles of my first and second cherry pie learning processes, which also include helpful links about scratch pie making.

• "Cherry Pie, Episode 1--the Newish Baker Challenge"
• "Cherry Pie, Episode 2--Oops, Awws, and Ahhs"

Low-Sodium Scratch Biscuits

A few weeks ago, i made scratch biscuits. Afterward, I calculated the amount of calories and sodium. (I used salted butter for the fat option and did not reduce the added salt.) I was surprised by the amount of sodium. The amount of sodium in the batch of 14 cut biscuits was 4600 mg (329/biscuit). The FDA provides information about salt consumption and methods for lowering it. Note: "The amount of salt in a food is listed as “sodium” on the Nutrition Facts label that appears on food packaging."

Sodium
I found some ways to reduce sodium in a future recipe.

• Reduce or eliminate sodium in baking powder.
• Reduce added salt when taking salted butter into account.
• Use the finer granularity popcorn salt—thinking that it might dissolve more quickly and completely in dough than table salt—more flavor bang.

Common in many scratch biscuit recipes is using three teaspoons of baking powder. Almost all baking powders have 60 mg sodium per 1/8 teaspoon—1440 per biscuit batch, about 100 mg per biscuit. Hain Pure Foods Featherweight Baking Powder uses potassium instead of sodium. This product is more expensive and not as readily available as regular baking soda. Amazon reviews are helpful for product satisfaction, quantity substitutions, and availability at Whole Foods.
Salt info websites:

• Salt (lots of pictures and explanations)
• Salt Varieties and Types (another good reference, but fewer pictures)

Fats
Fats called for in biscuits include salted butter, unsalted butter, margarine, shortening, and lard. Various recipes list a choice of salted and unsalted fats without addressing sodium adjustments. By personally perusing nutrition tables, I noticed that most salted butters and spreads would add about 720 mg of sodium to the recipe (~51 mg/biscuit) without regard to additional salt.

Various websites state that unsalted butter tends to have fresher ingredients than salted butter. In any case, if you choose to use salted butter in recipes, you should reduce the amount of added salt. For the biscuit recipe, I called for a conservative 1/2 teaspoon of popcorn salt. If you use salted butter, maybe use only 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Shortening and margarines have trans fats, in case you want to avoid them. Some margarines list 0 grams of trans fats. Note that all these fats list 1 tablespoon is one serving, and that if the amount of trans fats is less than .4 gram, companies can round off and show 0 to be the amount.

If you are a vegetarian (not a vegan), you can, in good conscience, consume butter. Related article: "12 Seemingly Vegan & Vegetarian Foods That Really Aren't"

Near the bottom of this article, look for calorie and sodium stats for ingredients.
My pixstrip shows five main image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Start of the process that is common to both drop and cut biscuits (milk excluded)
4. Process continuation—1/2 amount recipe, drop biscuits
5. Process continuation—1/2 amount recipe, cut biscuits

Implements

• Group 1
  • Cups to measure with
  • Medium mixing bowl
  • Plate (optional for grating butter onto)
  • Forks for tossing grated butter into the dry ingredients
  • Pastry blender
  • Measuring spoons (various sizes as needed)
• Group 2 (Item to cut or grate butter with—I used my salad shooter. Using a cheese grater is OK.)
• Group 3 (bowls for separate drop and cut biscuit doughs—unnecessary if making only one kind)
• Group 4 (baking pans)

Ingredients

• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 4 t no-sodium baking powder
• 1/2 t popcorn salt
• 1/2 C unsalted butter
• Milk (1 C if drop biscuits, 3/4 C if cut biscuits)

Instructions, Initial

1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. Measure and pour the dry ingredients into the main mixing bowl, stirring them together with a pastry blender.
3. Grate the butter into the dry ingredients (plateful of grated butter shown in pixtrip).
4. Use two forks to toss the items together thoroughly, avoiding warming the butter.
5. Use the pastry blender to fine-blend the mixture.

Instructions, Drop and Cut Recipe Differentiation

1. Divide the dough evenly from the previous step into two bowls.

Note: The pixstrip shows separate sections for 1/2 recipe each for drop and cut biscuits. If making only one type, don't bother dividing the dough.

2. Use pastry blender to blend in milk.
•  
• □ Half-recipe drop biscuits, 1/2 C
• □ Half-recipe cut biscuits, 3/8 C
•  
• □ Full-recipe drop biscuits, 1 C
• □ Full-recipe cut biscuits, 3/4 C
•  
3. Continue steps for biscuit shapes as desired.

Shaping, Drop Biscuits

1. Use the forks to collect and shape dough balls onto the pan(s).
2. Bake for about 10-14 minutes.

Shaping, Cut Biscuits

1. Place dough into lightly floured pan(s). Sprinkle flour on top, press to ~1/2 inch thick, fold; repeat at least three times. (I encountered some recipes that called for up to 10 times of similar kneading.)
2. Cut shapes with biscuit cutter, cooky spatula, drinking glass, or other means and arrange on the pan. (Some recipes called for cutter diameters from 2" to 3". A plastic shape I used had once held icing from a tube of Pillsbury refrigerated cinnamon rolls.)
3. Bake for about 10-14 minutes.

Post-Recipe Thoughts
The biscuits came out paler that I expected. Maybe the next time, I'll raise the temperature or bake longer. (I didn't want to overbake and dry by adding 4 minutes.) And although not as salty as I might have wanted, I could always spread salted butter.

I'm not sure that using popcorn salt, with its finer granularity, is more effective than ordinary table salt. Sure, it's more expensive, as is the potassium baking powder. The table shows, however, that the butter is the costliest ingredient. In the big picture, homemade biscuits are way cheaper than refrigerated biscuits or getting them from a bakery or eatery.

Contrasting Costs of Biscuits Using Regular and Specialty Baking Powders and Salts

		low-sodium $	reg ingred $
Flour		.20	.20
Potassium baking powder		.51
Regular baking powder			.08
Popcorn salt		.03
Table salt			.01
Unsalted butter		.75	.75
Nonfat milk (1 C, drop)		.25	.25
Nonfat milk (3/4 C, cut)		.19	.19
Full batch of 14	drop	1.74	1.29
	cut	1.68	1.23
Individual	drop	.12	.09
	cut	.12	.09

The drop biscuits are way easier and require less effort and time to make than the cut ones. The difference in calories between drop and cut biscuits is negligible, about 2 or 3 calories each biscuit.

Regarding sodium, using a recipe that calls for 3 teaspoons of regular baking soda and a teaspoon of salt instead of my recipe adds 2640 mg sodium per batch, about 189 mg extra per biscuit. And who eats only one biscuit per sitting? :-)


Stats for Calories and Sodium

Ingredients		Calories	Sodium (mg)
flour (2 C)		800	0
potassium baking powder (4 tsp), Hain Featherweight		0	0
popcorn salt (1/2 tsp), Kernel Season's		0	940
unsalted butter (1/2 C)		800	0
milk	1 C, for drop biscuits	80	107
	3/4 C, for cut biscuits	60	80

Biscuit Quantity	Shape	Calories	Sodium (mg)
Full batch of 14	drop	1680	1047
	cut	1660	1020
Individual	drop	120	75
	cut	119	73

Further Considerations
Potassium and sodium balance: "The trade-off for no sodium is every teaspoon of this baking powder has 500-600 milligrams potassium. That could be a problem for people with kidney disease whose potassium is running high, or someone taking blood pressure medicines that save potassium in the body."

Grating butter: Most biscuit recipes call for cutting the fat into the dry ingredients. I saw two recipes that called for grating cold butter—one for drop, and one for cut biscuits. Grating makes sense to me for easier and more thorough blending of ingredients. My salad shooter did a decent job of grating and also preventing butter warming from hand contact.

EZ Buttery Confetti Cake Mix Cookies

This recipe features Betty Crocker Party Rainbow Chip cake mix. Over the years, seems that companies have used labels like "party", "birthday party", "funfetti", and "confetti" for including the colorful, sugar mini-rod decorations. Hmmm, BC's webpage shows a Rainbow Chip cake mix, but omits "Party" from the product title and URL.

I'd been curious for a long while about using butter instead of cooking oil in my cake mix cooky recipes. (Try "cookies" in the search field at the upper left.) Rather than use a single-flavor cake mix, I decided on the confetti-ish mix. Interesting contrast between using butter and oil. The process is slightly different with softening the butter first. The buttery cookies came out softer and fluffier than cookies that I used oil instead.

My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Softened and slightly stirred butter
4. The butter and two eggs
5. Blended butter and eggs
6. Blended butter, eggs, and cake mix
7. Raw dough in pan
8. Baked cookies in pan
9. Cookies on a cooling rack (some flipped back to right side up)

Implements

• Cooky pan(s)
• Pastry blender
• Mixing bowl
• Measuring cup (optional for cracking eggs individually before pouring them into bowl)
• Tablespoon for measuring out cooky dough
• Spatula for scraping dough onto pan
• Cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• Cooling rack for baked cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup soft butter (2/3 stick)
• 1 box Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cake mix

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Soften the butter in the microwave oven as necessary.
3. Combine the butter and eggs.
4. Use the pastry blender to stir the cake mix powder into the butter and eggs mixture.
5. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
6. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet, using the rubber spatula to ease out each lump.
7. Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
8. Use the cooky spatula for lifting and transferring the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The batch made 39 cookies, ~57 calories each. I did spot some other cake mix recipes using the Betty Crocker Party Rainbow Chip cake mix, but several added frosting atop the cookies. Adding the frosting seems to be gilding the lily, adding more calories and sweetness, in addition to using more time and effort. Assuming a hypothetical distribution of an entire 16-oz can of Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Vanilla frosting, each cooky would have an additional ~47 calories—13 servings x 140 calories/serving ÷ 39 cookies = 46.7 calories/cooky.

Post-Recipe Thoughts
Another time, I'll try making cookies that emulate my "Krusteaz Choco Caramel Squares" from my previous article. However, I'll try making individual round cookies instead of a single slab that I cut up later. Haven't decided whether to use tablespoon/spatula method or use my cooky shooter to dispense the dough.

Chocolate Cereal Blocks Etc

The classic Rice Krispies cereal treat has been around for decades. Over time, I’ve noticed these cereal yummies have undergone two noticeable changes:

• Microwave directions for melting butter and marshmallows, replacing the kettle method
• Proliferation of pre-made packages

Chocolate Cereal Blocks Etc is my frequent deviation from the classic cereal treat, which I most recently prepared for a picnic. Received several raves, so I said I’d send out the recipe. Wellll, in the midst of writing it up, it started shaping up to be another blog article recipe. This recipe uses (in order) butter, caramel vanilla marshmallows and chocolate rice cereal for the cereal blocks. The ganachy icing has peanut butter meltable candies and chocolate frosting. For more details and ideas about the icing, read A Convenient Ganachey Icing.

The classic Rice Krispie blocks recipe uses 10 ounces of marshmallows, which throws a monkey wrench into cereal bar recipes if using Kraft novelty flavor marshmallows. (Curses! Kraft used to put out the novelty flavors in 10-ounce packages, but they’ve gotten greedy and now put them out as 8-ouncers!)

For convenience of those who want to make the classic blocks, I’ve pasted the very simple cooks.com recipe (printer-friendly). Deviation info follows.

CRISPY TREATS (MICROWAVE)
Printed from COOKS.COM
________________________________________
1/4 c. butter
4 c. miniature marshmallows
6 c. Rice Krispies cereal

Substitute 40 large marshmallows.

Butter microwave bowl big enough to hold all ingredients; microwave marshmallows 2 minutes then stir. Microwave again 1 minute. Stir in and mix well the Rice Krispies. Butter hands and put this mixture in a cake pan, flatten, cool and cut into squares.

My deviations from the cooks.com recipe:

• Primary ingredients:
• 3 tablespoons butter instead of ¼ cup (4 tablespoons)
• 10 oz. bag of Kraft caramel/vanilla marshmallows
• 8 cups Cocoa Pebbles. Key concept is chocolate rice cereal.
• Pan: I lined the pan with wax paper that overlapped two opposite sides. I used spray oil on hands instead of butter.
• Icing: I microwave-melted 4 ounces of Wilton Peanut Butter meltable candies (available at craft stores), stirred in 4 ounces of spreadable frosting, and microwaved some more, but using lower power. I poured the warm icing over the cereal mixture and squeegeed (using old but clean tool) it into the crevices.
• Yield: The cooks.com recipe says to cut the batch into 24 pieces. I cut my batch into 48, although some came out a bit smaller than others. Your sizes might vary also, depending on how well you wield your knife. :-)

Cake Mix Macaroon Cookies

How about a macaroon cooky that tastes a lot better than a gluey coconut clump? How about a cooky that chews like a softish cooky and has dominant coconut texture and flavor? Use a cake mix for the dry-ingredient base.

Most of my recipes are about minimal process and few ingredients. Most recipes I read lose me if I see more than six ingredients or multiple steps or time investment, or a combination of those conditions. Some of my ingredients at home drive my baking choices. One item I had was a bag of coconut I got free with a purchase of something else. I also had a box of white cake mix that I wanted to use up.

I based my recipe mostly on the ExclusivelyRecipes.com French vanilla macaroon bars recipe. A main deviation was mixing 1/3 C cooking oil into the wet ingredients instead of cutting in 1/3 C butter into the cake mix powder. I decided to try making individual cookies instead of shaping the dough into a pan and cutting it into bars after baking. I omitted the chocolate to keep the recipe simple.

Another recipe I consulted was the Chocolate Chip-Coconut Macaroons from the Betty Crocker Ultimate Cake Mix Cookbook. I deviated from the recipe as follows: I used only 2 T water instead of 1 C, used half as much coconut, used 1 egg instead of 3 egg whites, and omitted the chocolate. The recipe is online except that they omitted the quantities for the ingredients, which they want readers to request by email. Smart cookies will be able to infer the quantities, based on this paragraph and my list of ingredients. :-)

My pixstrip shows three images:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients, dry and wet
3. Baked cookies

Implements

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• medium-large mixing bowl
• small mixing bowl or large cup or jar
• fork or similar item for mixing wet ingredients
• measuring cup
• measuring spoons
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Ingredients, dry

• 1 1/2 C flaked coconut
• 1 18ish oz. white cake mix

ingredients, wet

• 1 egg
• 1/3 C cooking oil (Replace 1 T with sesame oil if desired for flavor twist.)
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 T water

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
3. Pour the cake mix powder into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
4. In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil, egg, vanilla, and water. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
7. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 12+ minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 45 cookies, calculated to about 80 calories each. YMMV.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

My convenient cooky recipe this time is my third one using cake mix. The other two have Valentine's Day and Easter themes. The German Chocochip Bites evoke German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The recipe yields about 55 soft and chewy cookies.

• 1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix
• 1 can coconut pecan frosting
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 6 oz. chocolate chips
• 2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a bowl or large cup, combine the melted butter, eggs, and frosting.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 4-teaspoon measure).
7. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

If you want to make smaller cookies but more of them, level off the tablespoons of dough instead of rounding them. Bake for about 10 minutes instead of 13.

Note: My German Chocochip Bites cooky is an adaptation of a foodista recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies, which calls for 4 ingredients: yellow cake mix, coconut pecan frosting mix, melted butter, and eggs.

Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel

The first time I'd become aware of bagels was about the early 90s. Oh, I'd encountered "bagels and lox" in books occasionally, but never gave them much thought. Seems when I read about them and saw pictures, they mystified me. They looked like doughnuts. Sometime shortly thereafter, I bought one. I ate it as though it were a doughnut. Hmmm. Kinda plain, not sweet. (Hadn't thought about the lox; thought cream cheese sounded icky.)

Over the years, I'd eat them in spurts. Sometimes a co-worker would bring in a box of them, accompanied with little containers of specialty cream cheeses. I really liked the salmon-flavored ones, also the jalapeno ones. Now I've finally settled into eating them mostly toasted, with a layer of butter.

I sometimes wondered about bagel denseness contrasted with store bread. Whenever I occasionally bought bagels at bagel stores, the stores tended not to list caloric information. Maybe I was too much into the out-of-sight-out-of-mind mode to bother looking up nutritional information.

In any case, bagels have become another bread aisle staple, in the same area as loaf bread, buns, and English muffins, with something called sandwich rounds starting to make appearances. Not long after I started to add bagels to the weekly shopping list, I looked at the nutrition table. Wow! 300 calories! That's about the same amount of calories as four slices of bread! Now, my days of eating one whole bagel (or more) at a time are gone, hopefully not to return.

The other day as I started the butter smear on my toasted half bagel, it crystalized in my brain that the hole in the middle makes the smearing inconvenient. I then thought about other times I'd thought about bagels and their holes. Bagel shops sell sandwiches on bagels. Occasionally, I'd bought bagels that had almost no hole. (I attributed the condition to the bagel dough preparer using a small ring to cut the dough instead of using a big one.) Most times, holes seemed to be about an inch in diameter.

I had thought using a bagel absent a hole at all would make a better sandwich than using a bagel where you need to be artful with the spreader; otherwise, condiments fall through. Also, if you're going to eat bites that have bread for each bite, it seems odd to run into breadless bites. The spreading care is even more crucial if buttering or creamcheesing a toasted bagel.

Why do bagels have holes? According to answerbag.com, the serious answer is that the holes allow thorough cooking of the bagels. "History of the Bagel: The Hole Story" has some history of the bagel in addition to details about the hole. Googling keywords "bagels no holes" yields numerous results. Closely related to why holes is how to make them. I ran across three ways to make them, none of which involve use of a cooky cutter device as I originally thought might be the case.

From baking911.com—

Hole in the Middle Method: From a ball shape, moisten your finger with water and poke your index finger through the center to form the hole. Moisten your finger with water, if necessary to smooth and to reshape the sides. Pull gently to enlarge hole.

The Hole Around the Finger Method: Flatten the ball of dough slightly into a disk shape, folding the bottom edge under and smoothing it until it looks like a doughnut shape. Make a hole in the center of the circle from the bottom up and twirl around your index finger to widen the hole. Reshape the round into a doughnut shape.

The Tube Around the Palm of the Hand Method: To form the bagels, take each piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball, then fold it in half, sealing the edges with your fingertips. Then fold again to form a tight cylinder. Roll the dough into a tube about 9 inches long. Wrap this piece around the palm of your hand, overlapping the dough about 2 inches. Pinch the ends together to form a ring. I like this way because it is quite fast.

Besides explicit information about shaping bagel dough to make the holes, Baking911.com has lots of detailed background and techniques throughout the stages of bagel making—even a q/a section. A passage that had caught my eye was "Boil on each side, about 3 minutes or less at a time, turning with a slotted spoon or skimmer. When done, the bagel will be puffy and the center will be nearly closed." Soooo, it's possible commercial bagels might have larger holes than necessary (or for my taste, anyway. ).

Well, after having poked around some sites to find out why bagels have holes and also reading the methodologies, maybe I'll settle for the normalcy of most bagels having approximately 3/4" diameter holes. OTOH, it seems possible that homemade ones might yield almost-closed-hole results.

I have listed some promising recipes that use breadmaking machines. My criteria for recipes tend to be calls for few items and ease of the process. (Look in my blog index for any title that has "convenient" in it, then visit articles. The fewer the ingredients, the better, I say.)

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/1180/Breadmaker-Bagels129588.shtml
Lists 6 ingredients. Features a calculator for adjusting recipe ingredient amounts to numbers of servings.

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Basic-Bagel-For-the-Bread-Machine-55609
Lists 5 ingredients for the bagels, 2 additional for egg wash substitute for Pam-type spray. Also includes recipes for bagel sticks and chips.

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5812.0
Lists 5 ingredients, accompanied by numerous comments.