Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bagels — Making bagels at home with this easy recipe will leave you wondering why you hadn’t tried it sooner! These are the BEST cinnamon raisin bagels I’ve ever had. Soft, chewy, and subtly flavored with cinnamon and plenty of raisins!
Easy Homemade Bagel Recipe
I have a soft spot for cinnamon raisin bagels. I ate one almost every day for most of high school and college. And these are the best ones I’ve ever had.
Making them has been on my culinary bucket list for a few years, but I was avoiding it because I thought they were hard to make. They’re not. And I can happily check bagels off the bucket list.
The issue is that with any sort of yeast recipe is that there are so many recipes for the same thing; sort of like chocolate chip cookie recipes.
Some recipes really over-complicate things compared to others, when the end result should be the same. A cookie should really just be a cookie, or in this case, a bagel.
I looked at the infamous Peter Reinhart recipe from his book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It’s all over the internet, but begins by making a dough sponge, allowing that to rest overnight, and then you pick up the next day, which stretches bagel-making over 2 days.
I can hardly get my readers to chill their cookie dough for 2 hours. Two day yeast recipes aren’t happening.
I looked at this Food Network recipe for inspiration for the water, flour, and yeast ratios. But like almost all bagel recipes, it has you boil the dough before baking it. The reason for boiling the dough is because the water helps create a chewier, heartier, thicker crust.
After making the dough, a two-hour rise, shaping the dough into bagels, and another 30-minute rise, the last thing I wanted to worry about was bringing water to a boil and dealing with that, so I didn’t.
This is a very straightforward yeast recipe, taking under 3 hours from start to finish. Like all my yeast bread recipes, I try to spell out every last detail to give the best chance for success, but always trust your instincts and watch the dough in front of you and if you think it needs more flour, more time to rise, or a cooler oven, do it.
Bread-making is weather-dependent and dough in humid Houston in the summer is going to need more flour than in dry San Diego.
It’s a dreamy dough to work with. Soft, smooth, and not at all sticky. Unlike cinnamon rolls where the dough should be moist, loose, and shaggy so the finished rolls are light and fluffy, bagels are chewier and denser.
So this dough is thick, dense, and very well-floured, perfect for newer bread makers who aren’t used to handling sticky dough.
I have Lindsay’s July Kitchen Challenge to thank for the nudge to make these. I wished I had tried making bagels ages ago because we loved them and they’re easy enough.
A homemade fresh, warm, toasted cinnamon raisin bagel slathered with butter or cream cheese is truly heavenly.
What’s in Cinnamon Raisin Bagels?
To make these easy homemade bagels, you’ll need:
- Warm water
- Granulated sugar
- Instant or active dry yeast
- Bread flour
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Raisins
- Yellow cornmeal (for sprinkling on the baking trays)
How to Make Homemade Bagels
Make the dough and put it in a bowl and wait about 2 hours for it to grow.
The photos were taken about 2am, when I do my best bread-making.
Everyone else is asleep and I’m working on blog stuff and the yeast are working, too. Perfect match.
Punch it down, divide it into 6 or 8 golf balls.
Stick your thumb through the middle of each.
Put them on baking sheets.
Wait another 30 minutes or so…
…And then get them wet. I simply just submerged the dough in a bowl warm tap water for a minute, and the bagels turned out with plenty of chewiness and crustiness.
I don’t like overly crusty breads, and the submersion method produced plenty of crustiness. I actually wouldn’t want any more and I’m glad I didn’t boil them. My jaw doesn’t need that much of a workout.
Place moistened or boiled pieces of dough on baking trays that have been sprinkled with the cornmeal. Bake the cinnamon raisin bagels until golden, domed, puffed, and done.
How Long Do Homemade Bagels Last?
Extra cinnamon raisin bagels will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days, or can be frozen for up to 6 months.
Can I Prep the Dough Ahead of Time?
I’ve had a few readers ask about making the dough ahead of time and leaving it to rise overnight so they can have freshly baked bagels in the morning. I haven’t tried this myself, but here are my thoughts.
After the first rise, I would just pop the bagels into the fridge, covered, and then the next day, take them out, let them come up to room temp for 30-60 minutes (just so they’re not chilled and look plumped), dunk in water, then bake from there. If you give this a try, let me know!
Tips for Making the Best Homemade Bagels
The cinnamon flavor is nice but subtle, and there’s plenty of moist raisins throughout, but if you’re not into cinnamon and raisins, you can omit and make plain bagels.
Or use dried blueberries instead of raisins, add seeds like poppyseeds, or use garlic salt instead of cinnamon for savory bagels. The vegan dough is a blank canvas for your favorite type of bagel.
These bagels freeze beautifully and can easily be reheated in the toaster or in the oven.
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Easy Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
Ingredients
- 1 cup water, warmed to packaging directions (about 125F for Red Star Platinum
- 1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons instant or active dry yeast (one 1/4-ounce packet, I use Red Star Platinum
- 2 ½ cups bread flour, plus more if needed and for flouring work surface
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon, or to taste
- ¾ cup raisins
- water for submerging or boiling
- 2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal for sprinkling on baking trays, optional but recommended
Instructions
- Warm 1 cup water to manufacturer’s packaging directions, about 45 seconds in the microwave. Take the temperature with a thermometer. If you don’t have one, water should be warm to the touch, but not hot. Err on the side of too cool rather than too hot because you don’t want to kill the yeast.
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook (or large mixing bowl), add the water and sugar.
- Sprinkle the yeast over the top. Wait 5 to 10 minutes, or until yeast is foamy. This means it’s alive and will work. (This is called proofing and technically with instant dry yeast you don’t have to proof it, for active dry yeast; you should. I do it regardless.)
- Add 2 1/2 cups flour, optional salt, and knead for 5 to 7 minutes, or until dough comes together in a nice, round, smooth ball. This is a thick, dense dough. It should be smooth and not sticky. If your dough is sticky or isn’t coming together, add another tablespoon or two of flour, as needed, until it does. Bread making is very climate and weather dependent. In the summer or in humid climates you may need slightly more flour than you do in the winter or in dry climates.
- Sprinkle the cinnamon and raisins over the smooth mound of dough. It will look like a lot of both, but allow them to be kneaded in for 2 to 3 minutes, or as long as necessary to distribute. If the raisins are being stubborn and want to fall out, push them in with your fingers. Note – Cinnamon and raisins may be omitted for plain bagels.
- Place dough in a cooking sprayed or lightly greased large bowl, cover with plasticwrap, and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free environment until doubled in size, about 2 hours. *
- Punch dough down, and turn it out on a Silpat or lightly floured work surface.
- Divide dough into 6 to 8 equal-sized portions. (I made 8)
- Roll each portion into a ball.
- With your fingers, make a hole through the middle of each ball. Stretch the opening, shaping dough into a bagel shape. Dough will tend to spring back and want to recoil, just re-stretch and re-shape. Push in any raisins that try to escape.
- Place dough on two Silpat-lined or greased baking sheets, cover with plasticwrap, and allow dough to rise in a warm, draft-free environment for about 30 minutes, until bigger, but they won’t have doubled. I use the preheated oven trick again.
- In the final minutes of rising, preheat oven to 400F. If you were using the oven as your rising spot, remove dough before preheating the oven.
- Before baking, to create a chewier crust, submerge each portion of dough into a pot of boiling water and boil for 1 to 2 minutes, flipping over halfway through. The longer the dough boils, the chewier and thicker the bagel crust will be. I personally do not like overly chewy bread with a thick, crusty crust and skipped boiling. My bagels were plenty chewy just from submerging in warm water.
- Instead, I submerged each bagel in a bowl of warm tap water for about 1 minute.
- Place moistened or boiled pieces of dough on baking trays that have been sprinkled with the cornmeal; about 1 tablespoon per tray. This prevents the bagels from getting too well-done or burning on the bottoms.
- Bake for about 18 to 20 minutes, or until golden, domed, puffed, and done. If you boiled them, they may take a few minutes longer to bake; if you made 6 rather than 8 bagels, they may take slightly longer to bake. Watch your bread, not the clock, when evaluating if they’re done. I preferred my 18 minute bagels to the 20 minute bagels because they’re softer.
- Allow bagels to cool on baking trays momentarily before serving. I recommend toasting them and serving with honey butter or cream cheese.
Notes
- *Tip – Create a warm environment by preheating your oven for 1 to 2 minutes to 400F, then shutting it off. This creates a 90F-ish warm spot. Slide the bowl in quickly, close the door, and wait for the dough to rise. Just make sure your oven is off.
- Extra bagels will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days, or can be frozen for up to 6 months. I have not tested freezing the dough after the first rise and after shaping, but before the second rise, and don’t know if this would be successful.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I, too, am a huge cinnamon-raisin bagel eater(I always try to diversify but come back to CR. No other bagel fills the void. I think you know!) but now that I cannot find any good bagel purveyor in the locale I moved to, I was not eating them at all. But I tried out this recipe and, boom, here comes a real winner. Better than the bagel I used to eat back on campus, which was quite famous there. Honestly, to a bread-machine person like me this is way more time/attention commitment than I am typically willing to make but I am definitely making another batch before long!
Thanks so much, Averie!
I can’t wait to make these at home!! Thanks for sharing!
Will this work if I use chocolate chips :)im excited to try
Probably! Although I haven’t tried personally. LMK how it goes!
Hi, I had the same gloopy dough situation after dunking in the water. I measured accurately and used bread dough, so not sure why. I did add about half a tbsp extra water after initially mixing the dough, as it seemed too dry. Anyway, I baked the bagel gloop, and it dried out remarkably well, even if the bagels are a little flat. Next time I’m just going to try misting the bagels with a warm water spray instead of dunking, as they came out plenty chewy.
I did add about half a tbsp extra water after initially mixing the dough, as it seemed too dry. <---- that could have been the issue. Sometimes just the smallest amount of extra water can make dough get too moist. But it sounds like you saved it! And I think misting is a great idea next time :) Glad these worked out for you! LMK how future trials go!
Hi Averie, I have a question for you! Is there any way to “make ahead” with these? So that I can bake them fresh first thing in the morning? Maybe after the second rise, before the boiling? I could just leave them to rise in the fridge? What do you think? Thanks!
After the first rise, I would just pop them into the fridge, covered, and then the next day, take them out, let them come up to room temp for 30-60 mins, give or take, just so they’re not chilled and look plumped, dunk in water, then bake from there. LMK how it goes!
Snow days bring out the baker in me. I tried these today and they were tasty (I compromised–I didn’t boil them on the stovetop OR use warm water–I used a bowl of water heated to the boiling point) but I think I’m impaired when it comes to shaping breads. Some looked like bakery bagels (I made 8) and some were kinda flat. When they rose the second time, some of them looked like they were losing the hole in the middle so I wiggled out the hole again–maybe I over-flattened them when I did this? And yes, I used bread flour and they rose properly both times so I think either my technique for getting them out of the water (a spatula) or for shaping them is to blame. But anyway, a fun treat–I’m pretty excited to be able to make bagels at home and they were simple to do.
Glad to hear you tried them and yes the finished shape does have to do with the shaping and how gentle you handle the raw dough through the process. So just be mindful and you’ll have bakery-looking bagels always :)
I was just wondering how you measure your flour, and specifically how many grams of bread flour is used in the recipe. Thanks!
I measure it in a measuring cup and I don’t know how many grams it weighed.
I tried this and submerged the bagels in warn water like you said. However, the dough is now complete goopy and a mess. Was this supposed to happen? Do you have any recommendations on preventing it from happening in the future?
No it shouldn’t be goopy. Most bagels are boiled for a few minutes; I simply dunked mine. I am not sure where things went wrong for you. Did you use bread flour? Did you measure properly? What brand – I prefer King Arthur to all others. I would let the dough dry out and bake them anyway and see what happens. You’ve got nothing to lose.
Do you think this can be made with AP Flour? We keep AP, White Whole Wheat, and vital wheat gluten in the house, as a general rule (I tend to always substitute whole wheat, when possible, but we buy bagels on a weekly basis from Dunkin Donuts or Brueggers, so if I can make them from scratch, that would be immensely healthier, even with white flour, I imagine). I am excited to try this!
If you want your bagels to taste like DD’s or Brueggers, you’re going to need to use bread flour for that classic bagel texture. AP will probably ‘work’ but it’s not going to give results as close to what bagels taste like.
beautiful pic’s and I just love bagels!! Do you have any idea if another type of flour would work? ( like almond flour)
No you have to use flour with gluten for this recipe to work. Bread flour is recommended and at the very least, all-purpose flour. I wouldn’t even try it with whole wheat b/c there’s not enough gluten in that flour for this recipe to work as written.
Have you tried Bake M Bagels? It’s an organic vegan bagel you keep in your freezer and then pop in the oven when you want a fresh bagel. They are delicious and come in a bunch of favors. They have them at Whole Foods and other organic/natural markets or we get them online. You should try them, for sure!!!
No I haven’t tried those. I’m sure they’re great – but things like that from WFs tend to be out of my budget when I can make 6 of my own for about 75 cents total :) But a fun concept it sounds like!
I think I somehow missed this post. Glad you reposted on FB. YUM. Seriously love cinnamon raisin combo. How could you not though?
Well so glad you saw it then! I have been trying to repost 1-2 things a day there and have found a surprising amount of people who say it’s news to them – so glad it’s working and not overkill :)
You’ve done it again. I’ve been dying to try my hand at making homemade bagels. But I canNOT resist a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast. MMM!
And they’re so much simpler than other recipes I looked at. Thanks Aimee!
I made these today, the “plain” version. I used parchment paper on my baking sheets and when I went to lift off the dough to submerge them in the warm water, they we slightly sticky and deflated somewhat. So I just baked the rest without the water bath, for fear of flat bagels. Maybe I need to use more flour next time?? Either way, they look delicious. Next time I will try greasing the parchment to see if that helps.
I never bake on parchment because it’s slippery (bad for cookies – I want the traction of a Silpat) and semi-tacky/wet for something like a wet bagel. I would bake on just a sprayed cookie sheet if you don’t have Silpats (best $20 you will ever spend though!)
As for them deflating and being slightly sticky…I am thinking that your dough could have possibly used a little more flour. 1/4 cup, give or take. I would try a bit more flour.
Also I swear by King Arthur’s bread flour and regular AP flour. It’s maybe $1.50 to $2 more per 5 lb bag but it’s money well, well spent. The brand of flour can make a difference, i.e.Gold Medal, Pillsbury, generic all have less protein so less structure in your baked goods. Use King Arthur when making bread, I swear by it :)
I’ve been a bit hesitant to try out making bagels at home for the same reasons. These look wonderful, and so good to know that they don’t take days to make! Looking forward to trying these beauties!
Thank you thank you thank you!! I’ve been looking for a foolproof recipe for cinnamon raisin bagels. Love it!
Enjoy!