Any tips for making pumpernickel bagels? I love Breadtopia’s bagel recipe and wonder if it can be adjusted to include pumpernickel flour or if I need to use a different recipe? Thanks!
Welp. I did some sleuthing and other pumpernickel bagel recipes call for 22-25% pumpernickel flour to 75-78% bread flour, so I am just going to use Breadtopia’s recipe and swap in the pumpernickel flour I bought at my local food coop and see what happens. Some recipes also call for adding in some dark cocoa (1-2 Tablespoons) so I I will add that into the flour weight. Will post results. Fingers crossed!
Me too… I decided to wait until tomorrow night to make the bagel dough, as Saturday morning will be better for baking than Friday. I will post pictures, whether it’s fail or a triumph.
Your plan sounds good to me. Here’s a reader recipe for pumpernickel bread. It also has molasses and rye flour in it, but both those ingredients could be challenging in a bagel dough from the shaping and boiling standpoint since they add stickiness – I’d use them sparingly or keep with your original plan. Looking forward to hearing how they turn out.
Thanks Mellissa! I will try that reader recipe as a bread one of these days.
Below is the ingredient list and measurements I am using for my first batch, which is now on the first rise. I will post pictures and update tomorrow. Other than playing with the ingredients a bit, I am following Breadtopia’s bagel directions.
Pumpernickel bagels (adapted from Breadtopia’s recipe - https://breadtopia.com/how-to-make-bagels/
Ingredients for 12 Bagels:
600 g bread flour (https://breadtopia.com/store/organic-bread-flour)
200 g pumpernickel flour
38 6 cacao powder (or cocoa)
486 g water
17 g salt
6 g organic yeast
10 g (~1 Tablespoon) diastatic barley malt powder (https://breadtopia.com/store/organic-diastatic-barley-malt-powder)
1 Like
So all in all, good results. I would hydrate the dough a tiny bit more, maybe by cutting the cacao (cocoa) in half as I can taste it a bit more than i would like. I would add caraway seeds, and increase the diameter of each bagel a tiny bit so they would be a bit less tall. I would also warm the formed bagels a bit more before boiling. But I am truly knitpicking. I grew up on New Jersey and Long Island bagels, and these are a pretty close match to the best of them.
1 Like
Those look awesome – I meant to comment days ago.
Also I’m with you on the NJ bagels. So good. When I made @eric 's bagel recipe on this site, my family did not say things like, “They’re good for homemade” or “These are nice but can you get them from the Bagel Chateau next time.” That was huge, an epic compliment to the recipe.
1 Like
Thanks Melissa! I love that recipe. I will be making more soon, hopefully this weekend.
They look amazing, i can smell them from here 
I wonder what I can do to imitate pumpernickel flour, which I have never seen here in Israel. Any ideas? Pumpernickel bagels are my favorite ever, but I have been making whole wheat ones from the Breadtopia recipe in absence of pumpernickel flour…
Raul - can you get rye flour where you live? That would get you closer to the texture and flavor - and add caraway seeds if you like them. The color won’t be as dark with rye instead of pumpernickel. But you can get a darker color if you can find extra dark (black) cocoa powder. My daughter gave me some that she found online. I couldn’t find the black cocoa in stores near me. Do let us know what you try!