Pizza at Home - Bagel Bites

Happy Sunday! Pizza day again! Perhaps you've heard the tv jingle that goes along with today's pizzas. "Pizza in the morning, Pizza in the evenin', Pizza at suppertime! When pizza's on a bagel you can eat pizza anytime!"
After the success of our Einstein Bros Bagels, I knew I'd have to try to recreate these mini pizza bagels that I had growing up.

I was unsure of what sauce would go best with them, so I just made another batch of the Red November #2 pizza sauce from before, with one minor change. I added another small can of tomato paste to make the sauce a little thicker.

I microwaved the spices just like before, and added it to the cold tomato sauce. It went into the fridge to start developing flavor until I was ready for it the next day.

The bagel recipe is the same one I used before from sophisticatedgourmet.com for New York Style bagels.

The only difference this time is that when the dough had proofed, instead of making 8 regular sized bagels, I'm making 16 mini bagels! I used a scale to make sure they were all the same weight. Despite that, some ended up bigger than others.

After portioning them, I rounded them into balls.

And to make that hole in the middle, I floured my finger and pushed it through the center.

I purposefully didn't stretch these out to be large holes. I don't need toppings falling through.

After a little bit of time to rise, they're ready for their boiling water bath. I used a slotted spoon to gently lower them in. I don't want it to deflate.

These puff up after boiling in the water, so I can't overcrowd the pot. After 1 minute, I flipped them over to give both sides a boiled chewy exterior.

See what I mean by different sizes. I'm not sure why some of these are so wrinkly. But the hole did close up just like I was hoping.

Ooh. Look at those delicious little bagels! Theresa is setting them on a cooling rack before we turn them into pizza.

With 16 bagels, which somehow turned into 15 (looking at you Theresa and the kids for snagging one from the cooling rack), I can make 30 pizzas. Just need to cut them in half.

I was pretty sure we didn't need 30 pizzas and I do always make a side to go with these, so, I split off 12 bagels rounds for garlic butter.

I sauced about half of them and then Theresa reminded me that I need to go a lot lighter on the sauce. I hardly used any from the batch I made. I'll be good for a week and go on next week's pizza too.

Cheesing them all up with shredded mozzarella.

And Bagel Bites aren't topped with regular circular pepperonis. They're in chunks, so Theresa cut up a few for me. I also grabbed a whole salami sausage and made pepperoni & sausage bites too.

Ian was excited to see the mini pizzas! Let's eat!

Here's the photo of Bagel Bites from the official website. The originals were invented in 1985, and over $1M of Bagel Bites were sold in the first year! Note the chunks of pepperoni.

And here's how mine turned out! That's pretty close I think!

And my cheese bagels and garlic butter bagels turned out fantastically too.

I got two big thumbs up from Ian, who had 2 mini pizzas. We were discussing the favorite meals that we've made at home. His first place is still Olive Garden, but his second place is Bagel Bites! He's a fan!

And Alli is giving me one carrot stick up (which I take to be a good thing).

A closer look at my creation. Pizza on the top.

Mini bagel on the bottom.

The outside was toasted and crunchy, while the inside was chewy. The perfect bagel. Top it with cheese and you're in business.

Richard and Chi got a kick out of it all. Chi is loving all the fresh breads I am making. Bagel Bites worked out well!