I’m not a very good baker, and I’m certainly no food scientist. I do, however, watch a ton of food videos on YouTube; I have read J. Kenji López-Alt’s The Food Lab; and I am hyperactive enough to pursue perfection in very specific areas. (Read: I think I can do anything in the kitchen.) This past summer, during six days at home between ending my job and coming back to New Haven, I sunk deeply into the pursuit of superlative bagels. I gave the majority of my waking hours to bagel research and development, and I can now save you that effort! This recipe is not especially challenging, and I really do think it is worth trying. Bagels are unbelievably good. What more can I say?

For the bagels to be as incredible as they can be, you really need a few things that you’re probably unlikely to have in the kitchen of your college apartment. All of these (except the mixer) can be easily and cheaply bought online:

• Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
• Kitchen scale
• Barley malt syrup
• Vital wheat gluten
• Bread flour

Here is the recipe, which I’ve modified a little from Andrew Rea’s recipe in Basics with Babish:

1. Mix two tablespoons of malt syrup into nine ounces of cold water. This is going to be really annoying to mix because the water is cold, but just keep whisking. Once you’re satisfied with the mix, put it in the fridge to stay cold. (Or don’t, if you’re working quickly. I’m not sure how cold the water really needs to be. Whatever makes you happy.)
2. Add 14.7 ounces of bread flour, four teaspoons of vital wheat gluten, and two teaspoons of instant yeast to the bowl of the stand mixer.
3. Turn the mixer on low speed and slowly add in the water and syrup mixture. Once the mixture is homogeneous, keep mixing for 30 seconds and then stop.
4. Let the dough sit there for 10 minutes! I’m serious — don’t touch it. Call your mom and say hi.
5. Add two teaspoons of salt to the dough and knead on medium-high for a while. I usually stop when I get bored, which ends up being about five minutes.
6. Take the dough out of the mixer and knead it by hand for a minute or two. If it feels sort of rubbery and springy, you’ve reached the right place.
7. Cut the dough into bagel-sized pieces. The size is really up to you. This recipe makes about eight big bagels, or up to 12 smaller ones. You could probably make six mega-bagels or a whole bunch of mini bagels, if you so desired.
8. Lightly sprinkle two baking sheets with cornmeal. Roll the pieces of dough into balls and spread them out evenly on the two sheets. Cover each in plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the outside of the bagel. Let the balls sit for 15 to 20 minutes so the gluten can “relax,” as they say. I don’t understand the science here, and neither should you, but you will definitely notice that the dough is much softer and easier to work with when you return.
9. Select a “work surface,” as they also say, and sprinkle it with flour to keep the dough from sticking. Place the dough ball on the work surface, and use your hands and a rolling pin to flatten the ball into a flat circle. The size will depend on the number of bagels you’re making, you want to aim for a thickness of a little over a quarter-inch. Once you’re satisfied with the thickness, roll the circle up into a tightly-wrapped tube. Picture a Play-Doh snake. Put one hand on either end of the tube and roll, one hand away from you and the other toward you, so that you make a twist in the dough. Preserve the twist as you wrap the tube around your hand, and squeeze the ends together in your palm. Place the newly-formed bagel back onto the cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet.
10. Once you’ve done the above with all the bagels, again cover them in plastic wrap and let them “proof” (pudge out) at room temperature for 75 minutes.
11. Put the baking sheets with the bagels in the fridge overnight! I know you’re disappointed to read this step — I was livid — but the overnight fridge session does wonders for the yummy bagel flavor. Demonstrate patience, put on your bedtime pants, and go to sleep.
12. Wake up on the morning of bagel day! I’m happy for you. Hopefully you already went shopping for your lox and cream cheese and capers and onions and tomatoes, but if you didn’t, now is the time.
13. Preheat the oven to 450°F. If you make this recipe a few times, you might find that a different temperature is more suitable for your own oven.
14. Put a big pot of water on to boil. Add in a few spoonfuls of sugar and a tablespoon of baking soda, and give both a minute to dissolve. Drop the bagels into the water, two or three at a time, and boil for 30 seconds on each side. You can flip them with any object — chopsticks are pretty good — and you’ll need a big ladle to get them out. After the bagels are boiled, place them onto a wire rack.
15. Apply toppings if you want them. Just sprinkle them on top while the bagel is still wet. If you really want to heap on the toppings, brush the top of the bagel with a beaten egg white first.
16. Place the wire rack with the bagels on it on top of a rimmed baking sheet and pour about a half cup of boiling water into the sheet. If you don’t have correctly-sized racks and baking sheets, you can balance the rack on top of any vessel that holds water. Before I bought mated pairs of baking sheets and racks, I tried the racks variously on top of a muffin tin, a loaf pan, and a casserole. All decent options.
17. Bake the bagels for 10 minutes, then take them out and flip them over. Put them back in the oven until they’re just on the edge of going from pale to light brown. I overcooked many batches because I was hypnotized by the needless desire for them to be golden brown. They should not be brown. You know what the right color of bagels is, and you should trust your instincts.

Ready, Willing, and Bagels was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.