Blueberry Bagels, Purple Inside and Out

The color in these bagels doesn’t come from any coloring: it’s 300 g (about 2 cups) of blueberries cooked down slowly into a thick puree that goes straight into the dough. The crumb comes out a purple that doesn’t look like something you made at home.

Inside they’re proper bagels: a dense, tender crumb, a glossy crust and that chew that comes from boiling in honey and baking soda water and from a night in the cold. The flavor is a bagel with a fruity note underneath, not sweet and not cloying.

You can shape them two ways with the same dough: round with a hole, like a classic bagel, or tied with kitchen twine so they bake into little pumpkins. In deep purple, the second one needs no explanation for Halloween.

It’s the same dough as our homemade bagels, swapping part of the water for fruit puree. We give you every amount in grams (with cups and spoons in brackets) and explain why each step matters, so they turn out right the first time.

How We Make Them at Home, Step by Step

Not the Blueberry Bagel You Buy at the Store

Worth saying up front, because it decides whether this recipe is what you’re looking for.

The blueberry bagels on supermarket shelves are pale, with dark specks: they’re made with dried blueberry bits or whole berries folded into a plain dough. These are the opposite. The fruit goes in as a puree, so it tints the whole crumb purple, and there are no specks at all.

Both are good. They’re just not the same thing, and if what you want is the speckled kind, scroll down to the FAQ: we explain how to fold in whole blueberries instead, and you can do both at once.

The Blueberry Puree: Reducing It Is What Changes Everything

Here’s the difference with other fruit bread recipes. Blueberries are mostly water, so if you blend them raw and add them to the dough, two things happen: the dough goes soft and unmanageable, and the color fades to a pale pink that disappears in the oven.

The fix is to cook them with no added water until they thicken. 300 g (about 2 cups) of blueberries give you about 180 g (¾ cup) of puree, so you’re driving off more than a third of their weight in water and concentrating all the pigment into what’s left.

How to know it’s ready. It should look like a loose jam: drag a spoon across the bottom of the pan and the trail takes a second to close. And weigh it, which is the reliable check: if it’s over 200 g, give it a few more minutes.

Straining is optional. Pushing it through a fine mesh strainer removes the skins and gives a smoother crumb and a more even color. If you don’t mind the odd piece of skin, skip it.

Why the dough takes 125 g of water. Reduced puree is still 70-75% water, so those 180 g bring around 130 g. Added to the 125 g (½ cup) you pour in, that’s the 255 g of water in our regular bagel dough, and it ends up just as firm.

Even so, every batch of puree is different and the fruit sugars soften the dough a little, so keep the scale nearby while you knead: if it looks cracked and won’t come together, a little more water 5 g (1 tsp) at a time; if it stays stuck to the sides of the bowl, flour 10 g at a time.

Where the Purple Comes From

All of the color comes from the blueberries. The pigment is called anthocyanin, the same one that colors red cabbage and blackberries, and it has a quirk: its shade shifts with pH.

The crumb stays purple. It’s where the fruit color shows best, and it’s what you see in the cut photo.

The crust goes darker. The boiling water has baking soda in it, which is alkaline, and that pushes the anthocyanin toward a much deeper purple, almost aubergine. The oven dulls it a little more. So it’s normal for the outside to look considerably darker than the inside, and it doesn’t mean they’re overbaked.

If you see bluish or grey glints on the surface at any point, that’s the same thing: the pigment reacting to the baking soda.

Two Shapes, One Dough

The dough is the same and so is the process. Only two things change: how you shape the balls and how long they spend in the oven.

With a hole, the classic bagel. Push your thumb through the center of the ball, put two fingers in and turn the dough like a steering wheel until the hole is 4 or 5 cm (1½ to 2 in). It looks like too much, but it closes up by almost half as the dough grows. Since the heat gets in through the middle too, they bake in 16 to 18 minutes.

Tied into a pumpkin shape, for Halloween. Instead of the hole, you tie each ball with oiled cotton twine into 8 sections and knot it on top without pulling it tight. As the dough grows, it puffs up between the strands and the ridges appear. With no hole the center takes longer, so those go 20 to 22 minutes. The tying, step by step and with photos, is in our pumpkin bagels.

In deep purple, the pumpkin version is one of the best-looking things we’ve pulled out of our oven. The classic one is what you’ll want the rest of the year, especially for splitting and filling.

Why Bagels Are Boiled Before Baking

An unboiled bagel is just a ring-shaped roll. What turns it into a bagel is that short bath in hot water: in 45 seconds per side, the surface of the dough sets into a thin skin. In the oven, that skin becomes the smooth, glossy crust bagels are known for, and it also holds back the rise, which is why the crumb stays dense instead of fluffy.

We put two things in the water:

Honey, for shine.

Baking soda, which makes the water slightly alkaline. The crust browns more and better, and here it’s also what gives the deep purple on the outside.

Keep the water at a gentle simmer, with small bubbles. At a rolling boil the dough gets knocked around and the bagels lose their shape.

We go into it properly in our homemade bagels recipe.

The Night in the Fridge, the Step You Don’t See

Between 12 and 18 hours at 4 °C (39 °F), covered. It looks like a waiting step and nothing more, but it’s where a lot of the work happens: the slow rise develops flavor that two hours at room temperature never will, and cold dough holds its shape far better in the water. It’s also what gives the final shine.

If you want to check they’re ready, take one out of the fridge and drop it into a glass of cold water. If it floats within 10 seconds, go ahead. If it sinks, leave them at room temperature for 30 to 60 minutes and test again.

How We Like to Eat Them: Ube Cream Cheese

Ube is a purple yam, a staple of Filipino baking, and the powdered form is easy to find in Asian grocery stores and online. Stirred into cream cheese it makes a filling as purple as the bread. Per bagel:

• 30 g cream cheese (2 tbsp)
• 1.5 g ube powder (½ tsp)
• 1.5 g powdered sugar (½ tsp)

Mix the ube with the powdered sugar first, equal parts. It’s worth making a small jar of it, because it’s the same mix we dust the plate with.

Stir it into the cream cheese. Ube powder is dry and starchy, so the cream cheese firms up more than usual. If it’s hard to spread, a teaspoon of milk or cream brings it back.

Split the bagel once it’s completely cool and spread both halves. While warm, the crumb is still damp inside and squashes as you cut.

The filling gets its color from the ube, not from the blueberries. The bread’s color is all fruit.

If you can’t find ube, cream cheese with blueberry jam works just as well, though the purple is less intense. And if you have puree left over from the dough, a teaspoon stirred into the cream cheese does the same job.

If Something Didn’t Turn Out Right

The crumb came out greyish instead of purple. The puree wasn’t reduced enough, or there wasn’t enough fruit for the amount of flour. 300 g (2 cups) of blueberries should give you about 180 g (¾ cup) of puree, and never more than 200 g.

The crust is much darker than the crumb. That’s normal. The baking soda in the boiling water darkens the pigment on the surface.

The dough is sticky. The fruit sugars soften it. Add flour 10 g at a time until it pulls away from the bowl.

The dough looks cracked and won’t come together. Your puree was on the thick side. Add water 5 g (1 tsp) at a time, up to 20 g (4 tsp).

It hasn’t risen in the time we give. In fermentation, your kitchen temperature matters more than the clock: at 18 °C (64 °F) it can take twice as long as at 24 °C (75 °F). Wait for that 30-40% and carry on, no rush.

The hole closed up. It was too small when you shaped it. Next time, stretch it to 4 or 5 cm (1½ to 2 in).

They lost their shape in the pot. The water was at a rolling boil, or you took them out of the fridge too early and they were soft. Turn the heat down until you only see small bubbles.

The crust came out pale. The oven wasn’t hot enough, or the water was short on baking soda. Preheat for at least 30 minutes.

The stand mixer walks across the counter. Normal with a dough this firm. Stop for 5 minutes and continue, or knead in two rounds of 6 minutes with a 5-minute rest in between.

Frequently Asked Questions About Blueberry Bagels

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