My recipe for bagels doesn’t call for boiling, steaming, or any sort of water-based prep before baking; however, it calls for refrigerating my shaped bagel dough a day before baking. I’ve never seen a bagel recipe not call for a water bath. Any explanation for why this particular recipe (for so-called “New York Style” bagels) would omit this step? I’m worried about spending days to make these just to have sad bagels at the end.

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