Several years ago, I made a recipe called “Bagel Bombs“. They turned out great and tasted amazing. But, unfortunately, life got busy and I had too many other recipes to try. So, I never made them again.

When the list of Extraordinary Breads from King Arthur Baking was recently release, I saw that a similar recipe was included in their collection and decided it was time to make these tasty treats again.

For my filling, I did not have any cheese powder and really did not want to have to purchase any new baking supplies. I also did not have a malt powder. But, luckily my sister-in-law did have some malt powder. For my flavors, I used what I already had available in my refrigerator. I had a small amount of garden vegetable cream cheese – enough for four bagel buns. I also had some honey butter cream cheese – I decided to make four of these as well. For the remaining buns, I used the 2 ounces of plain cream cheese that I had and mixed it with 1/2 T of lemon paste and 2 T of crushed freeze dried raspberries. This made enough for six buns. Each of these cream cheese flavors were shaped into balls and frozen.

The dough was kneaded and allowed to rise while we were at church this morning. After returning from church, it was time to make the bagel buns. The dough was divided into small portions.

Each ball was then flattened and molded around one of the frozen cheese balls.

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The stuffed dough was then boiled quickly in malt-water, similar to how bagels are made. The garden vegetable buns were sprinkled with coarse sea salt prior to baking in the oven. The honey butter and raspberry buns were sprinkled with pearl sugar.

These each taste great, but my favorite (by far!!!) is the raspberry filled buns.

Besides learning a bit more about baking breads, I think the other very useful thing I have learned from my recent baking endeavors it that freeze dried fruits add a tremendous amount of flavor to baked goods. The next time I get groceries, I will probably be adding a few more fruits to my purchases.