These delicious French Toast bagels are flavoured with maple syrup and topped with maple (or brown) sugar. A perfect morning bagel!
I think there’s maybe nothing nicer for breakfast than a warm, buttered French Toast bagel. The smell of maple coming up from the toaster. Intoxicating. The melted butter together with the lightly sweet carbs. Always perfect.
These French Toast Bagels came about this week for two reasons. First, my sister mentioned having one somewhere (and really enjoying it) and then I found a bag of maple sugar flakes in my cupboard. That’s about all I need to get some baking inspiration.
I usually use a variation of Peter Reinhart’s bagel recipe, which is delicious, but a two-day baking adventure. For these, I decided to see if I could drastically reduce the time and still get a great bagel. I’m pleased to report, I did. That said, you’ll still need a few hours to make these bagels, but most of it is passive rising or chilling time. The chilling time after shaping the bagels is very flexible, so it allows time to do something else or for an overnight rise, if you’d like to make at night and boil/bake in the morning.
Cook’s Notes
As for the french toast flavours, I added a couple of eggs, some cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla, along with some real maple syrup. A generous sprinkling of the maple flakes (or brown sugar) goes on before baking. Despite totally winging it, I have to say, they really do taste like french toast! I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you can’t find maple sugar flakes, maple sugar will work just as well. I found maple syrup flakes in a bag (not in a bin), at Bulk Barn in Canada. I imagine health food stores or sections of larger store would have maple sugar or flakes, as well. I really recommend seeking them out for these bagels. They really are the perfect finishing touch. Failing that, a little brown sugar is fine to use. If you can’t find any of that, brown sugar will work here, as well.
These bagels are best eaten as soon after baking as possible. The sugar topping will tend to melt a bit the longer they sit. If you can’t eat them all up quickly, they do freeze beautifully.
Get the Recipe: French Toast Bagels
Ingredients
Sponge:
- 1 cup (125 g) all-purpose or bread flour
- 1 cup (250 ml) warm water
- 1 tsp. (4 g) instant or dry active yeast, not quick or rapid rise instant yeast
Dough:
- 1 1/4 tsp. (5 g) instant or dry active yeast, not quick or rapid rise instant yeast
- 1/3 cup (73.33 ml) brown sugar, packed
- 1 tsp. (2.6 ml) cinnamon
- 1 3/4 tsp. (10.5 g) kosher salt, less if using table salt
- 2 (2) eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp. (6.3 ml) vanilla
- 1/3 cup (0.02 ml) pure maple syrup
- 3 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose or bread flour
- 1 Tbsp. (12 ml) baking soda, for boiling
- 1 (1) egg, for egg wash
- Maple sugar or flakes or brown sugar, for sprinkling tops
Instructions
- *If using active dry yeast, proof yeast in water prior to adding to dough.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, water and yeast. Using your paddle attachment, mix until well combined. Let stand for 20-30 minutes, until bubbly.
- *If using active dry yeast, proof yeast in a couple of tablespoons of water before adding.
- Add the rest of the ingredients, except the flour and mix in with your paddle attachment. Switch to your kneading hook and add 2 cups of the flour. Knead until combined. Continue adding flour 1/4 cup at a time and mixing in, until the dough is smooth, cleans the bowl and is not sticky. Transfer to a greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, 1 1/2-2 hours.
- Remove risen dough to a lightly flour surface and de-gas gently. Cut dough into 8-10 equal-sized pieces and form each into a ball. Let rest a few minutes. Using a floured index finger, poke a hole into the centre of each ball and stretch around to form a bagel shape. Place shaped bagels onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat until all are formed. Cover well with greased (sprayed with cooking oil) plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 10-15 minutes, then transfer to the refrigerate. Chill dough for at least 1 hour (can let chill up to 12 hours).
- Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Pre-heat oven to 425° F. with racks in lower 1/3 and upper 1/3 of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. When water boiling, add 1 Tbsp. baking soda. Remove bagels from the fridge. Add 2-3 bagels to the boiling water. Boil for 1 minute, flip over and boil for 1 minute more. Remove to a parchment lined baking sheet, 4-5 per baking sheet. Repeat until all bagels are boiled.
- Mix egg with 1 Tbsp. water. Brush each bagel liberally with egg wash and sprinkle tops generously with maple sugar or flakes. Place baking sheets in oven on top and bottom racks. Bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, switch the baking sheets top to bottom and front to back. Bake a further 8-10 minutes, or until golden. Remove to a cooling rack to cool.
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Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
Excellent! Wonderful chew and flavour. Great plain or toasted. In addition to the maple sugar flakes on the tops I also sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. Because of the sweetness of the crust I reduced the brown sugar and maple syrup in the dough to 1/4 cup each . Instead of making the sponge in the recipe, I subbed sourdough discard. I weigh ingredients so used the volume measures in the recipe as a starting point, and had to add more flour to get the right dough consistency. The dough kneaded for more than 10 minutes before passing the windowpane test. I bulk fermented it at room temperature for 1 hour until it was about two-thirds doubled, then finished the bulk fermentation in the fridge overnight. In the morning the cold dough was easy to shape. It portioned evenly into 8 large bagels (121 grams dough per bagel). To prevent the holes from shrinking while the bagels proofed I put greased spice bottles in them to hold the shape. As soon as the bagels passed the float test I poached them so that they wouldn’t overproof. I added barley malt syrup and salt to the water. They baked to a deep golden brown in 17 minutes. Keepers!!
Sounds lovely, Sadie. So glad you enjoyed them :) Thanks!
Is there a difference in the final outcome of the bagels depending on whether you use all-purpose or bread flour? Thanks!
Hi Erin, using bread flour will provide a slightly chewier bagel.
I have some malt syrup should I boil the bagels with some along with the baking soda for better flavor? If so, how much should I add to the water?
You certainly can, Kayla. About 1 Tbsp malt syrup for every 3 cups of water.
I made these today with the intention of having breakfast for dinner, but we ended up going out to eat instead, so we had these for a dessert! They were DELICIOUS!!!! We had them warm right out of the oven and loved them! They were so good that I asked my parents to come over late for a quick dessert! Thank you so much for sharing your recipes! After making your cinnamon skillet bread several times, I knew these had to be good too! I can’t wait to try the pumpkin bagels next!
Thanks Erin and so glad you enjoyed these! I am such a fan of homemade bagels and these are a lovely, sweet one.
Made these this morning, although I used my own bagel sponge recipe, and they were completely awesome. Not only smelled like french toast but taste like it too! Made the kitchen smell fantastic. Thanks for the recipe :)
So glad you enjoyed them, Michelle. One of my favourite bagels!
I had never considered the possibility of making my own bagels. These look incredible – my family will love them. Thanks for the idea!
Hope you get a chance to make some. These are a quick version, so a great recipe to start with.
LOVE the french toast flavors! I’ve got to try these beauties!
Thanks Sophie. You won’t regret trying these ones :)
Everything about these bagels look perfect! I could totally go for one right now with my tea. Perfection.
Pinning!
Thanks Abbie and these bagels would be great with tea. Thanks for pinning!
Absolutely gorgeous, love the maple topping!
Thanks Laura. I loved the maple flakes on these bagels. And they were pretty good eating right out of the bag, too :)
I had a French toast bagel when they first came out at Tim Hortons! They’re super awesome, so I can only imagine how great these homemade ones are!! Yum!
I was really pleased with how they came out. Delicious warm with lots of butter!