Vegan recipe: Rainbow bagels with funfetti cream cheese

We’ve been seeing rainbow bagels popping up all over the internet lately and they look so beautiful, we had to give them a go! Making your own bagels is a little time consuming (and a major forearm workout) but it’s totally worth it, especially if you can’t get your hands on the real deal rainbow bagels in New York!

In other news, we’ve recently discovered Yummly and we are loving how easy it is to share, store and organise recipes, so if you’re looking for a way to store your favourite recipes then click on the “yum” button! You can find our Yummly profile here!

Vegan recipe: Rainbow bagels with funfetti cream cheese

Print Recipe

Servings

12 medium sized bagels

Servings 12 medium sized bagels

Vegan recipe: Rainbow bagels with funfetti cream cheese Print Recipe Servings 12 medium sized bagels Servings 12 medium sized bagels

Ingredients

For the bagels

• 6 cups white flour + more for dusting
• 2 cups warm water
• 1 7g sachet active dry yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• gel food colouring

For the funfetti cream cheese

• 1 cup vegan cream cheese
• 3 tbsp sprinkles
• 1/2 cup icing sugar (powdered/confectioners sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Servings: medium sized bagels

Instructions

1. Combine 1 cup of warm water with the yeast and sugar in a bowl and leave it for 10-15 minutes until it bubbles and froths, this ensures the yeast is active and your bagels will rise.
2. Into the yeast mixture, add the remaining cup of warm water, the flour and the salt and mix with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, until the dough is elastic and springs back when pressed. Form the dough into a ball.
4. Lightly oil a bowl and place the ball of dough inside, turning the ball to coat it lightly in oil, cover the bowl with cling film.

   
5. Leave the dough somewhere warm to rise for 60 - 90 minutes until the ball has doubled in size.

   
6. Knock the air from the dough and divide into 6 pieces (or more or less depending on how many colours you want for your bagels). Take each piece of dough and add food colouring (start with around a teaspoon and add small amounts at a time until you get the desired colour). On a floured surface, knead the colouring into the dough, and then roll out flat, be sure to keep the rest of the dough covered while you knead the colouring in to each piece or it will dry out. Kneading the colour into the dough takes a lot of elbow grease but it's worth persisting to distribute the colour evenly. Do this with each piece of dough and stack the flat, rolled out, coloured dough in rainbow order (or whatever order you like). Leave the stack of dough covered for 5 or 10 minutes so that the layers stick together.

   
7. Cut the layered dough into 12 strips and twist the strip until all the colours are swirled through it. Form the strip of dough into a long sausage and stick/squash the two ends together to form a bagel. Do this with the remaining strips of dough until you have made all the bagels. Cover the bagels and leave them to rise for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220˚C.
8. Preheat the oven to 220˚C. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and then turn it down to a simmer. Add the bagels, 3 at a time, to the water and boil for 30 seconds, flip and boil for another 30 seconds. Remove them from the water and place on a wire rack to dry and continue until all the bagels have been boiled.
9. Place the bagels on a lined oven tray and bake for 15 minutes, flipping halfway through. Keep an eye on them as you don't want them to get too brown. Allow your bagels to cool on a wire rack for a few minutes.

   

For the funfetti cream cheese

1. Add the cream cheese, vanilla essence and icing sugar into a bowl and combine well. Mix through the sprinkles.
2. Smear your warm bagels with funfetti cream cheese and serve!

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