Bagels and Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

We had a great time spending a week in Missoula! Kellie introduced me to a couple of new and delicious recipes! Neither of them are originals, but I am posting them here so I don't loose them. The night before we left, we made bagels for dinner and banana brownies the brown butter frosting for dessert. We added in a trip to the Big Dipper for ice cream too. We had so much good food on our trip- Chicken Osaka from Noodles Express and lunch at 5 on Black. Wish we had those restaurants here! I gained 4 pounds! Now its back to counting calories for me!

Homemade Bagels

This recipe is from Laura in the Kitchen.

Changes we made:
We doubled it, and then split the dough in half to make two flavors. We made 10 bagels out of each recipe instead of 8.

In half the dough, we added about 1/2 cup sharp white cheddar and 1/2 cup chopped roasted green chilies that Kellie had from New Mexico that she had frozen. We had to add extra flour to these because the chilies had a lot of moisture in them. Then we put more chilies in the middle of some of the bagels before we cooked them and then covered them with more cheese half way through the baking time. They were good - but the ones with extra chilies on them were a little spicy for the kids.

In the other half, we did plain ones topped with a mix a kosher salt, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds.

We wanted to try cinnamon raisin too - Next time!

Ingredients:
Skimpy 1 Tbsp Yeast
1-1/2 cups of Warm Water
2 Tbsp of Granulated Sugar plus 1 teaspoon
3-1/2 cups of Bread Flour - Yes you need bread flour  - Kellie uses it for everything!
2 tsp of Salt

For the water bath:
12 cups of Water
1/3 cup of Honey

1 Eggwhite beaten with a splash of water to make an egg wash

Process,

Mix together the warm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and yeast, set aside for a few minutes to allow the yeast to activate. Add the flour, salt, and remaining sugar to yeast and water mixture. Add extra flour to make a soft, slightly tacky dough.Mix in mixer with a dough hook for about 8 minutes on medium-low speed until your dough is smooth. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and (flip it over to coat the whole thing with a bit of the oil) cover and allow it to rest for about an hour and a half.

Once the dough has risen (won’t be doubled in size but will be pretty risen by then).  Deflate dough gently and then divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. (We did 10.)

Form each piece into a ball by rolling it between the palm of your hand and your work surface. Try not to leave any cracks or joins in the dough - we had a hard time with this! Using one finger poke a hole (go all the way through) in the center of each ball and using both pointer fingers, poke them through the center hole and rotate your fingers to about a 2” hole (check out video for better and more clear instructions on this).

Place the bagels on a parchment paper lined baking sheet cover with a damp, lint free towel (we just sprayed ours with cooking spray- no covering with a towel) and allow to rest for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and place one of your oven racks on the top 2/3 of the oven. We put ours too high for our first batch. In a large, wide pot (I used my dutch oven for this) add your water and honey and bring to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to simmer, add 4 bagels at a time and cook them for 1 minute on each side and then transfer them on the same baking sheet (make sure you flip them back to top-side-up) repeat with all the bagels.

7) Brush the tops and sides of each one with the beaten egg white wash and bake them for about 20 minutes or until deeply golden brown all around (rotate your pan halfway through).

8) Allow them to cool for a few minutes on your baking sheet before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.

Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

I have heard about how delicious brown butter is, but I have never tried it until now. YUM! Who knew cooking butter would make such a difference in the flavor. These were so good. I had one for breakfast the day we left and Kellie sent a plate of them home. We put them in the freezer when we got home. Ryan likes them better frozen. The recipe we used comes from The Girl Who Ate Everything, but Kellie says it's posted all over the internet on different blogs. Genna helped us make these too.

Banana Bread Bars:
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed ( Kellie just used 4 frozen ones and squeezes them out of the peel into the mixer)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional) -  we skipped them

Browned Butter Frosting: ( I don't think Kellie measures this - just eye balled it!)
½ cup butter
3¾ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10x15 jelly roll pan or line with parchment paper (for thicker bars use a 9x13 pan and bake for 10 minutes longer than directed). Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Blend in bananas and vanilla for one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend for one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool slighty until warm but not hot and frost with Browned Butter Frosting.

For the Browned Butter Frosting: Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it is boiling and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. You can add milk to get it to the correct consistency. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it's on the warm bread.