This is a Martha Stewart recipe and after this I am completely convinced that none of Martha's baking recipes are tested as written. There are always weird problems, like the description of what is supposed to be happening is never accurate, she always makes you use about three times as many bowls as makes sense, and the filling:pastry ratios are usually way off. This time Martha wants you to proof your yeast by just adding it to warm water. Now, I am not a yeast biologist, but I think you need to add some sugar to get your yeast to foam. Oh wait, I am a yeast biologist. Anyway, then she wants you to bake the bagels on parchment paper at 500 degrees. Martha, at what temperature does paper ignite? 450! Why do you want to set off all our smoke alarms? Also she calls for 1.5 tablespoons of salt. Where is my half-tablespoon measuring spoon? (They are on the verge of too salty so I think 1T would be adequate.)
But as long as you ignore most of the instructions, these bagels are great. Dense, bagelly, with an excellent chewy/crispy crust. I was skeptical that they would be that much better than store bagels, but they really are much better, and not that much work since you can make the kitchenaid do the kneading for you.
