Making Bagel Boards

What’s a bagel board?

I discovered bagel boards while searching for techniques on YouTube. A bagel board is a 3 ½ x 12-14 inch long cedar board covered in a couple layers of burlap. You soak the burlap boards in plain water while your dough is rising. The idea is that in order to have a nice, uniform crust you want to pop your bagels into the oven upside down for about 4 minutes, and then flip them off the bagel boards to complete baking right side up.

The soaked burlap prevents the top of the bagel from baking while the bottoms get crispy. This should result in a very evenly cooked bagel. Here’s how I made my bagel boards.

You will need:

• Cedar 1 inch X 4 inch X 8 foot board (I paid $7.66 at Lowe’s – Lowe’s will also cut the board for you before you leave the store)
• Food Grade Burlap, cut into 3.5 inches wide strips
• Staple Gun
• Saw

You can find food grade burlap online at Amazon. Link below.

(affiliate links)

Steps:

• Decide on how long you want your boards to be and then cut three or four depending on your needs.
• Wrap each board end to end with 2 layers of burlap and staple at both ends.

Ta Da!

And there you have it!

Pretty simple, yes?

Now, please check out my detailed post on making homemage bagels. Plenty of pictures, too!