Authentic Gluten Free Bagels

This recipe makes truly authentic gluten free bagels that you may have thought you'd never have again. The secret to an easy to handle dough is the cold rise before shaping, and the secret to the chewy crust is boiling them in a molasses bath before baking to perfection.

As a born and raised New Yorker, chewy, crusty New York-style bagels have always been very important to me. Now I bring them to you, gluten free!

Why you'll love this recipe

These bagels are crisp and fully browned on the outside and satisfyingly chewy inside, just like real New York bagels. You can sprinkle them with sesame or poppy seeds, everything seasoning, even top with cinnamon-sugar after brushing with an egg wash.

The recipe has lots of ingredients that aid in browning in the oven, an egg white to help them hold their shape as they cool, and extra tapioca starch to make the bagels super chewy.

Enjoy them plain, toasted and with butter or cream cheese, or use them as the foundation for the perfect sandwich.

Recipe ingredients

Here are the ingredients you'll need to make this recipe, plus a bit about the role each plays in a perfectly round, chewy, browned bagel:

• Gluten free flour: Select your all purpose gluten free flour blend carefully, an important choice for any recipe, but especially important in a shaped yeast bread recipe like this. I highly recommend Nicole's Best multipurpose gluten free flour blend or Vitacost's Multi-Blend Gluten Free Flour with added xanthan gum, or Better Batter's original all purpose blend without additional xanthan gum. I recommend against Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 in the blue bag here, since it just doesn't have enough structure. King Arthur Flour's gluten free bread flour or pizza flour may work, though. 
• Tapioca starch: Adding extra tapioca starch to this recipe, beyond what is already contained in your all purpose gluten free flour blend, adds extensibility and stretch to the dough. Sprinkling the dough lightly with more tapioca during shaping also helps the bagels crisp in the oven.
• Milk powder: Adds richness to the bagels and helps them brown. Use even if your all purpose blend already contains milk powder.
• Instant Yeast (aka rapid rise or breadmaker yeast): Gives these bagels their rise. To use active dry yeast, add 2 grams more for a total of 11 grams yeast, and proof it in some of the recipe's water first. Active dry yeast has a thicker inactive coating that you must dissolve before adding it to the dough or it won't activate.
• Sugar: Helps feed the yeast, adds a very gentle sweetness and helps the bagels brown.
• Salt: Adds flavor, and helps control the rise of the yeast.
• Butter: Adds richness, buttery flavor and helps with browning.
• Egg white: Provides structure to help the bagels hold their rise as they cool after baking. The egg wash (egg + water) brushed on the outside of the boiled bagels helps them turn out evenly brown and shiny.
• Water: Brings the dough together and creates a wet enough environment for the yeast to thrive. Warm water helps the yeast activate quickly. Make sure yours isn't too hot, or it could kill the yeast.
• Molasses bath: Bagels are traditionally boiled in a water bath with barley malt added. Since we can't use that gluten-containing ingredient, we use unsulphured molasses in a boiling water bath instead to add some dark brown color to the bagels.

How to make gluten free bagels

Whisk the dry ingredients
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together all the dry ingredients except the salt (gluten free flour blend with xanthan gum, tapioca starch, milk powder, yeast and sugar) before whisking in the salt.

This evenly distributes all the dry ingredients and ensures that the unmixed salt and yeast don't come into direct contact, as salt inhibits yeast.

Add the wet ingredients
Add softened butter, a room temperature egg white, and warm water to the whisked dry ingredients. If your mixing bowl is especially large, turn things over a few times with a spatula to begin combining wet and dry ingredients.

Mix well
Place the mixing bowl in the stand mixer and attach the paddle. Mix on medium-low speed for a minute until the flours are moistened. The dough will clump around the paddle. Mix on medium-high speed for about 4 minutes or until the dough sticks to the sides of the bowl and takes on an airy, whipped appearance.

Chill the unshaped dough
Transfer the prepared raw dough to a container or bowl and cover tightly. Place in the refrigerator for at least a 30 minute (and up to 2 day) cold rise. This allows the dough to develop yeasty flavor. It also gives the flours time to absorb moisture and the butter to stiffen, making the dough easier to shape.

Divide the dough
Place the dough on flat surface lightly dusted with extra tapioca starch and sprinkle it lightly with more tapioca. Use a bench scraper or sharp knife to divide it half, then each half into 4 equal portions, each weighing a bit more than 4 ounces. Evenly divided dough will rise and bake evenly together.

Shape into rounds
Work with one piece of dough at a time to shape into a round. Cupping your hand around the dough, resting the pinky edge of your hand on the surface and your hand in a C shape (or a backwards C if you're right handed like I am). Move your hand around in a circle, maintaining contact with the surface on the side of your hand at all times. Only sprinkle with more tapioca as essential to prevent sticking or the dough can dry out, preventing a proper rise.

Create bagel holes
Use your palm to press each round gently into a disk. Poke a floured finger into the center from both sides of the dough. Rotate the dough around that finger in concentric circles to widen the hole. Bagels are sometimes shaped by rolling out a cylinder of dough, about 1 1/2-inches thick and then joining the ends together to create a round. If you shape your bagel like that, the edges may separate during boiling or even during baking.

Let the shaped dough rise
Place the raw shaped bagels about 2 inches apart on lined baking sheets, cover lightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until about 50% larger than they started. This is very temperature and humidity-dependent, so be patient. The dough isn't strong enough to double in size while still holding its shape, but you don't need it to.

Boil the risen bagels
Add unsulphured molasses to water and bring it to a rolling boil. This is the molasses bath that restricts the oven rise a bit and ensures that chewy, classic bagel texture and appearance. Boil each risen bagel for less than 1 minute total, flipping over gently to boil both sides. Return to the baking sheet.

Brush with an egg wash
Brush the boiled bagels with an egg wash to help them brown well and come out shiny.

Bake until golden
Bake at 375°F for about 25 minutes, rotating once after 15 minutes, or until they've reached a beautiful golden brown and measure about 180°F on an instant read thermometer.

When they're done, the bagels will spring back when pressed gently and will feel relatively light for their size. The molasses bath may cause them to blacken a bit on the bottoms, but it won't affect the taste.

Expert tips

Be sure to add extra tapioca starch

Most well balanced all purpose gluten free flour blends have some tapioca starch in the blend. Here the recipe calls for extra tapioca starch as a separate ingredient, and it's essential. It provides structure, stretch and a smoothness to the dough.

If you don't have a stand mixer

You can't make a cohesive raw dough that rises smoothly both raw and during baking without some sort of mechanical mixing. A stand mixer with the paddle attachment is ideal for over-areating the dough a bit, which a handheld mixer would do.

If you don't have a stand mixer, you can try using a large food processor with the plastic dough blade (the metal blade is too aggressive). Pulse the dough a couple times quickly, scrape it down to redistribute the ingredients, then pulse again and repeat until you have a relatively smooth dough. Be careful not to overprocess.

Avoid overproofing the shaped dough

The raw, shaped dough will not double in size, and instead will become about 50% larger than how it began. If the dough begins to take on a dimpled look, it's started to overproof. Over-risen dough will soak up water like a sponge and disintegrate during boiling.

Boil before you bake

Boiling bagels after their shaped rise sets the starches on the outside, keeping them from rising too much in the oven. It's what creates the characteristic chewy crumb that a roll-with-a-hole that just looks like a bagel can't have.

Ingredient substitutions

Dairy free

To replace the milk powder with a dairy-free alternative, coconut milk powder should work. In place of butter, vegan butter should work. I like Miyoko's, Melt, or Trader Joe's brand vegan butters best.

Egg free

If you can’t have egg whites, try replacing the egg white with an equal amount, by weight, of aquafaba, which is the brine from a can of chickpeas. Try beating it until foamy with a whisk before adding it to the dough. In place of the egg wash on the outside of the bagels, try using melted butter or cream.

Storage instructions

Boiled and baked bagels will stay fresh for only about a day. If you wrap them very tightly in high-quality plastic wrap, they will still be good toasted the next day or two.

For longer storage, once cool, they freeze exceptionally well. Just slice them in half horizontally, place them in a well-sealed zip-top container with all the air squeezed out, and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature or briefly in the microwave, and toast to perfection.