Homemade Montreal Style Bagels

I suppose that unless you're from Montreal, this may not be as unbelievably fantastic a find for you, but you'd be wrong not to read on. I was raised on Montreal St Viateur or Fairmount bagels and, probably the most difficult part of the move to Toronto was the lack of them. Toronto bagels are...well...they're soft, puffy rolls with a tiny hole. And I've written about them many times, even about finding them at the Montreal Pierre Trudeau International Airport, and the bagel wars between those who grew up in Toronto and those of us who moved there from Montreal.

Admittedly St Viateur Bagel has a couple of Toronto outlets. You can find them at the St Lawrence Market and on Eglinton near Bathurst. And Pete's Frootique, here in Halifax does import them from Montreal, but naturally that's not the same as walking into the actual bakery and being assaulted with that awesome aroma of wood burning oven, fragrant hot yeasty dough, toasty sesame seeds...I'm drooling now.

Normally, when I write a book review, I write about it here, but Marcy Goldman's latest cookbook The New best of BetterBaking.com deserves to be talked about at AskRuth for some of her trade baking secrets and here as well. I mean, really, I feel an obligation to all those fans of Montreal bagels everywhere. Now you too can make them...start to finish (including all the resting time) 90 minutes.

I was so excited, that I forgot to buy my favorite topping...cream cheese and smoked salmon. Good thing there are still some left so I can rectify that. I actually have three favorite ways to eat a Montreal bagel...three courses, if you will...
fresh from the oven, just ripped apart and slathered with salted butter - often eaten in the car on the way home from the bakery all by themselves...
normally followed by cream cheese with smoked salmon, sliced onion, perhaps a sliced tomato and some capers, but not necessarily - today I had some with Ran-Cher cayenne & garlic goat cheese - a nice alternative until I actually get the smoked salmon...
and for "dessert", slathered with cream cheese and ginger marmalade.

So if you're a bagel fiend, what's your favorite style and topping?