Product Review: Blends By Orly GF Pastry Flour, Manhattan Blend (for Bagels!)

Modern Bread & Bagel’s drool-worthy GF bagels are the best of Instagram clickbait. But if you can’t get to New York City to sink your teeth into real-deal GF bagels from the source, this all-natural GF flour blend, which leads to a recipe for those bagels that actually works, is the next best thing. 

Created by Le Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef Orly Gottesman ( who founded Blends by Orly and Modern Bread & Bagel) so her celiac husband could enjoy delicious baked goods, this, the Manhattan Blend, is one of her many flour offerings. 

The Manhattan Blend is recommended for use in bread, doughnut, challah, and pastry recipes. But we went straight for the bagels, especially since she provides the winning recipe on the package. The result? Crusty-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside, golden brown New York-style bagels with awesome texture and yeasty, neutral flavor with a mild sweetness, just like a wheat-flour bagel. 

The flour can be used for more than bagels, of course; Orly recommends adding 25 percent more water when substituting the blend in recipes calling for regular all-purpose flour.

TIPS FOR MAKING ORLY BAGELS:

• A kitchen scale is very useful when measuring ingredients and dividing the dough into 12 equal portions. 
• Like big, standard-size bagels? When following the recipe, divide the dough into nine portions instead of 12. 
• Be prepared—the dough is sticky and the process can be a bit messy. 
• Bagel shaping takes a bit of practice, but we got the hang of it by the fourth bagel. The recipe calls for letting the bagels proof (rise) for 35 to 45 minutes until they have almost doubled in size and are soft and fluffy to the touch. We needed to let our bagels rise for 30 to 40 minutes longer.
• We added 1 tsp. of honey to the water when boiling the bagels as Orly recommends on her website. 
• Start to finish, the bagel-making process takes a few hours, but your kitchen will smell like a bakery and there is really nothing like a fresh, warm bagel. 

WHERE TO BUY: blendsbyorly.com or at Modern Bread and Bagel in New York City

INGREDIENTS: Long grain rice flour, potato starch, sorghum flour, millet flour, tapioca starch, xanthan gum.

CERTIFIED GLUTEN FREE: Yes

CONTAINS STATEMENT: None.

OTHER HELPFUL INFO: Kosher; vegan; non-GMO; dairy-, corn-, soy- and nut-free.

REVIEW DATE: January 2020

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