Roasted Garlic Bagels

Garlic lovers rejoice! These chewy roasted garlic bagels get their flavor from a whole bulb of roasted garlic.

The toasted fennel seeds are technically optional, but balance out the garlic with a nice herbal, anise-y flavor.

My plain bagel recipe is one of the most popular on the blog, for good reason — it's relatively quick for a yeasted bread, and bagels are a lot easier to make than you think.

There are few things more satisfying than slicing into a freshly baked bagel and slathering it with cream cheese. If you like these bagels, don't forget to check out my rosemary olive oil bagels and my homemade egg bagels too!

About This Recipe

This recipe takes just sliiiightly longer than making plain bagels only because you need some extra time to roast the garlic and toast the fennel.

Instead of 2-3 hours, anticipate closer to 3 (maybe 3½) hours. Most of that additional time isn't active, hands-on work, so it's still a great project for a slow morning or easy afternoon.

You can also roast the garlic and toast the fennel up to a day in advance.

This particular flavor combo — roasted garlic and fennel — was inspired by an unforgettable bagel I picked up at The Kettle Black, a small bakery in Philly many years ago.

The roasted garlic is mellow and a little sweet, but still assertive and unmissable, and the fennel gives a really nice aromatic, kind of herbal anise-y vibe.

I know fennel can be kind of a divisive flavor — if you don't like fennel, you can definitely make these garlic bagels without it. But if you do like fennel, you will love love love the combination.

For these garlic and fennel bagels, I like to use whole fennel seeds that I toast in a dry skillet and grind with mortar or pestle or my FinaMill.

(Full disclosure: FinaMill sent me a PR sample to test out, but I was not obligated to post/share/recommend it, I only mention it because it's genuinely perfect for this recipe, particularly for topping your finished bagels with additional ground fennel.)

You can also use an electric coffee grinder or just buy pre-ground fennel (though the pre-ground stuff is less great for topping your bagels).

Never roasted a whole bulb of garlic before? Don't let that stop you! I've got a blog post all about how and why to roast a whole bulb of garlic right here. You may want to wear gloves when you slide the roasted cloves out of the skin, unless you like when your hands smell of roasted garlic.

Measuring Ingredients by Weight

As with all of my baking recipes, I've provided ingredient amounts by weight (grams) first, with volumetric (cups) measurements in parentheses at the end of each line. If you've never baked by weight before, I definitely recommend it.

You can get affordable kitchen scales on Amazon (I like this one) and they will make you a much better baker.

Why measure by weight? Depending on how tightly you pack 1 cup of flour, you might end up with 150 grams or 100 grams of flour, which can make a big difference in how your bagels turn out! Using weight measurements when baking is one of the best ways to get consistent results.

Bagel dough is a low hydration dough, which means it's got a low amount of water to flour by weight, making it really lovely to work with. It's smooth and elastic with lots of stretch to it, which makes it a great dough for beginners.

Be gentle, but firm with your bagel dough, and if it ever starts fighting back or doesn't want to work with you, just cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for a few minutes. It'll be in a much better mood after that. Stretch it, don't tear it as you shape it.

Garlic can inhibit yeast activity, so it's best to wait until the dough starts to come together before you add it. This gives the yeast a chance to get moving before you add anything that might slow it down.

How to Shape a Bagel

Divide the dough into equal portions. If you're combining a few pieces together to make a portion, stack the smaller pieces on top of the bigger pieces. Tuck the edges up so the dough is smooth against the counter with a seam pinched together on top. Repeat until the dough ball feels fairly tight. Don't tear the dough, just stretch it.

Then, flip the dough over so the seam side is down against the counter. Cup your hand around the dough and slide it toward you. The dough will take on an oval shape. Rotate it 90 degrees and repeat to turn the oval into a round circle.

(Or, cup your hand around the dough with your pinkie-side flush against an unfloured counter and your thumb and forefinger making an O- or C-like shape above the dough. Move your hand in quick circles without picking your pinkie off the counter, and the dough will quickly shape itself into a nice smooth ball of dough.)

Once the dough has been shaped into balls, coat your hands in flour and stick a thumb through the bottom seam of the dough. Slide your other thumb in and gently squeeze and stretch, rotating the dough through your hands until the bagel hole is at least the same width as the sides of the bagel if not bigger.

You may want to repeat the stretching process again before boiling to keep the hole from closing up in the oven.

recipe notes for garlic and fennel bagels

• This recipe uses instant yeast (sometimes called "rapid rise" yeast). Instant yeast does not need to be proofed (or "bloomed") in water before use. Add it directly to the dry ingredients and it will be activated when you add the water. Just don't put the yeast right on top of or under the salt in your bowl — salt kills yeast.

• Warm water is around 105-110F. If you don't have a thermometer, you're looking for water that is just slightly on the warm side of lukewarm.

• If you want to make the dough at night and boil and bake your bagels in the morning, you can put the dough in the fridge for the first rise (bulk fermentation) before you punch it down OR after you shape the bagels. In either case, make sure the dough is covered so it doesn't form a skin or dry out.

• I test my bagel recipes with both all-purpose and bread flour. Which one you use is really up to you. Bread flour is more traditionally used for bagel making because it gives you a chewier, denser bagel, but if you don't have bread flour, all-purpose will work just fine.

• You can make this recipe without a stand mixer! Follow the same instructions, only replace every mention of "dough hook" with "a sturdy spoon" or "your hands." Use a sturdy spoon to mix the dough in a large bowl. Once it starts to come together, turn it out onto a clean, lightly floured countertop and knead for 8-10 minutes until it's smooth, slightly tacky, and elastic. Resist adding more water unless absolutely necessary.