These sourdough cinnamon crunch bagels are a super delicious and possibly addicting breakfast or brunch. Chewy bagels topped with a cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter topping that is baked until caramelized and crunchy.
I’ve been on a bagel kick lately trying out a bunch of different recipes. There is just nothing like a homemade bagel for breakfast (we also love to use them for sandwiches for lunch).
My original homemade bagel recipe can be made in so many ways, but I really had a taste for one that tasted just like a Panera cinnamon crunch bagel.
These turned out so amazing. They are fluffy while having a perfectly chewy texture and mouth watering crunchy cinnamon sugar topping.
Make this recipe for a special brunch, Christmas morning (you can even prep ahead so all you have to do is top with the cinnamon topping and bake in the morning), or really any day of the week. It’s really hard to just eat one. Even the little bits of caramelized sugar on the pan are delicious.
Also, these are guaranteed to make your house smell amazing and like a beautiful fall day is just wafting through the house.
Ingredients
Bagel Dough Ingredients
All-purpose flour: You could also use bread flour if desired. The amount of water may need to be adjusted.
Active sourdough starter: This is a starter that has been fed 4-12 hours before starting the dough. It is bubbly, active, and has about doubled in size. It should also pass the float test. Take a little bit of starter and place in a glass of water. If it floats it is ready to use.
Water: Preferably filtered water. Tap water may contain too much chlorine which can inhibit the wild yeast in the sourdough starter.
Cinnamon: This adds a nice warmth to the dough, perfect for fall and winter.
Salt: I prefer sea salt or Himalayan salt
Honey: You can also substitute with regular sugar or maple syrup.
Cinnamon Crunch Topping
Brown Sugar
Sugar: I like organic cane sugar. Regular white sugar will also work.
Melted butter: The butter acts like a glue to combine the crunch topping. It also gives it an amazing crust that melts over bagels.
Cinnamon: Pumpkin spice would also be amazing
Tools you may need:
Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
Large pot or dutch oven
Kitchen scale (optional)
Bench scraper (optional, but handy)
How To Make Sourdough Cinnamon Crunch Bagels
Step 1: Add sourdough starter, warm water, honey (maple syrup or sugar), salt, cinnamon, and two cups of all purpose flour to a bowl of a stand mixer.
Step 2: Mix with the dough hook attachment until it comes together, about 10 minutes on low speed. This is a pretty stiff dough. Add remaining flour, half a cup at a time. Knead until it is smooth and pliable. You could also knead by hand, but the stand mixer makes this process much easier. Less of an arm workout.
Step 3: Cover dough with wet tea towel, plastic wrap, or beeswax wrap; allow to ferment at room temperature in a warm place for 8 to 12 hours for the first rise. The cover must be tight or damp or else a dry crust will form at the top of the dough, and while it will not completely ruin your homemade bagels, it makes it a little less desirable.
Step 4: After the dough has fermented, divide into 8 equal pieces. I like to use a bench scraper to make it easier.
Step 5: Roll the dough into balls in a circular motion, flatten them down a bit, and poke a hole in the middle with your index finger. Stretch the hole a bit to widen.
Step 6: Place shaped bagels on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rest in a warm spot for two hours or until puffy. The time will depend on how warm your house is. It could take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours.
Step 7: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bring a large pot of water to a full boil and add the baking soda and sugar. If you are sensitive to baking soda, you can just use sugar. Using a slotted spoon, gently add bagels to the boiling water and boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute. Shake off excess water and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Step 8: In a small bowl, mix together sugar topping. Generously sprinkle the top of the bagels with the sugar mixture. I like to try to mound it up right in the center. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown on top and the cinnamon mixture has a little crunch. Enjoy the delicious smells. Serve with butter, cream cheese (hazelnut cream cheese would be amazing), nut butter, etc.
Storage:
Store in a paper bag at room temperature. Do not store in an airtight container, like a plastic bag. They will turn into a slimy mess. Trust me. They also do not freeze well.
Tips:
- Use a slotted spoon or ‘spider’ strainer to flip and pull the bagels out of the boiling water.
- If you don’t have a sourdough starter, you can check out this post, where I show you exactly how to make a starter from scratch.
- When boiling the bagels in the water bath try not to overcrowd your pot. Also, the bagels should float.
- You can knead the dough by hand or use a stand mixer. A stand mixer is much easier and less time consuming.
- Make the dough ahead, allow to ferment at room temperature, and then pop into the fridge before or after shaping if you want to bake them later. I like to do it after shaping, because shaping the dough after refrigeration can be a bit challenging. You could also let it sit at room temperature for a bit before shaping as well.
FAQ:
Yes. They are higher in nutrients and lower in gluten making them easier to digest.
These bagels on the other hand do contain a lot of added sugar. So they are more of a special treat.
Most likely it is due to a starter that was not active enough, over-fermentation of the dough, or they did not rise enough before baking.
This is most likely due to over-fermentation or under-fermentation of the bagel dough. Not giving the bagels adequate time to rise until about double, will leave you with flat bagels. If you allow the dough to rise too long, it could also lead to flat bagels.
Find More Sourdough Recipes:
- My Favorite Sourdough Bread
- Sourdough Blueberry Bagels
- Sourdough Buttermilk Pancakes
- Easy Sourdough Discard Pretzels
- Puff Pastry Made With Sourdough Starter
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love if you could come back to the recipe card and give it 5 stars!
Sourdough Cinnamon Crunch Bagels
Ingredients
Bagel Dough
- ½ cup sourdough starter, bubbly and active (113 grams)
- 1 cup water, 236 grams
- 2 tablespoons honey, 21 grams
- 2 teaspoons salt, 10 grams
- 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 560 grams
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
For boiling the bagels
- 2 quarts water
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
Cinnamon Crunch Topping
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon butter-melted
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Add sourdough starter, warm water, honey (maple syrup or sugar), salt, cinnamon, and two cups of all purpose flour to a bowl of a stand mixer.
- Mix with the dough hook attachment until it comes together, about 10 minutes on low speed. This is a pretty stiff dough.
- Add remaining flour, half a cup at a time. Knead until it is smooth and pliable.
- Cover dough with wet tea towel, plastic wrap, or beeswax wrap; allow to ferment at room temperature in a warm place for 8 to 12 hours for the first rise.
- After the dough has fermented, divide into 8 equal pieces. I like to use a bench scraper to make it easier.
- Roll the dough into balls in a circular motion, flatten them down a bit, and poke a hole in the middle with your index finger. Stretch the hole a bit to widen.
- Place shaped bagels on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
- Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough rest in a warm spot for two hours or until puffy. It could take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Bring a large pot of water to a full boil and add the baking soda and sugar.
- In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and butter together. Set aside.
- Using a slotted spoon, gently add bagels to the boiling water and boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute.
- Shake off excess water and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Generously sprinkle the top of the bagels with the sugar mixture. I like to try to mound it up right in the center.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown on top and the cinnamon mixture has a little crunch. Enjoy the delicious smells.
- Serve with butter, cream cheese (hazelnut cream cheese would be amazing), nut butter, etc.
Notes
- When boiling the bagels in the water bath try not to overcrowd your pot. Also, the bagels should float.
- You can knead the dough by hand or use a stand mixer. A stand mixer is much easier and less time consuming.
- Make the dough ahead, allow to ferment at room temperature, and then pop into the fridge before or after shaping if you want to bake them later. I like to do it after shaping, because shaping the dough after refrigeration can be a bit challenging. You could also let it sit at room temperature for a bit before shaping as well.
- Store in a paper bag at room temperature.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Absolutely delicious! What can we do to make them freeze well? Remove topping possibly?
Yes. I would make a cinnamon, sugar, and butter topping combination to apply to them when you pull them out of the freezer!
Delicious!! They are so good!
I need help! I followed all the instructions but my bagels didn’t rise and they sunk like little tiny round ships in the water!!
Was your starter at it’s peak when you made the recipe?
First time making this recipe and they are amazingly delicious! My husband ate 2 :-))
They are also beautiful to look at! The CRUNCH topping fell off when we cut into the bagel but after we slightly heated in the micro, cut in half and buttered, we just put the fallen crumble onto the cut buttered cut halves. YUM YUM
Oh and I must add that I used my Homemade Vanilla in the recipe!!!!!!! THANK YOU for these 2 awesome recipes!
This was my first time using sourdough and making bagels. They came out fantastic! I was so nervous trying to make bagels for some reason and you helped push me off the sourdough cliff into a fun world of bagel possibilities. 😂 Now my family is requesting other flavors they love, like Asiago, poppy onion etc. I can’t wait to try more.
I was reading the comments before about the topping melting off. I researched different topping recipes similar to this one and tried to add some other stuff to firm it up. I found this on King Arthur website. It stayed firm and was similar to the Panera bread topping when baked.
2 tablespoons (27g) light brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon coarse sparkling sugar or turbinado sugar
2 tablespoons (15g) Unbleached Bread Flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
1 tablespoon (14g) butter, melted
These are delicious but can you recommend any tips to keep the brown sugar mixture from melting off the top and crystalizing on the bottom of the bagel? I pull the bagels off the cookie sheet immediately and transfer to a cooling rack, but there is still some sugar hardened to the bottom of the bagels and it is very off putting. Otherwise, super delicious. I also added some cranberries to the dough. That little pop of tanginess is so yummy!
I would just like to say that I have been baking for over 20 years only a few years with sourdough, but this is by far the best bagel recipe I found. My first try was perfect. My second try not so perfect. My bagels just sunk to the bottom of the pan but I would like to know if there’s anybody who gets all of them perfect? Because I think it would be very difficult to write a sourdough recipe that everybody’s going to get correct when everybody’s hydration levels are different some people weigh some people measure, your elevation level I never thought it made a difference until my daughter moved to Florida but it does there’s just so many variations and if you’ve ever bought a bagel from Panera bread, you would know just taking them out of the bag half of the cinnamon falls off and then when you put them in the toaster, it burns to the heating elements and the other half falls off, so I don’t know if you could ever get that perfect I have found that I pile some of the cinnamon mixture in the middle and when half of it falls off I toast my bagel and butter it n sprinkle the cinnamon crumbs onto the butter.i give it 5⭐️
I doubled your recipe and let it sit out on the counter overnight for 12 hours–my house is 70 degrees. It didn’t rise AT ALL! Is it not possible to double the recipe by just doubling each ingredient? It was very dry—Should I have added more water maybe?
You should have no troubles with doubling the recipe! Was your starter active before you used it in the recipe?
The topping just melted when I baked it. What did I do wrong?
I accidentally added all the flour at once and kneaded by hand. Did that ruin them?
Nope not at all!