Minced onions burning on bagels

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Jpyers on 28 Jan 2019 at 10:22

Hi there, 

I am in the process of starting up a new bagel business. I have finally moved into the kitchen and now have access to a 4 deck rotating oven. I have the recipe down and process, but the only thing holding me back at the moment are the onion toppings! 

I use dry minced onions. I have tried rehydrating them, cooking them normally, and spraying them down with water before they go in. I cook at 475 degrees and they always seem to burn. This has been driving me insane and cannot figure out how to get them to not burn. I have tried bagel boards but with this oven and just being me in the kitchen, it is not possible to do it all myself and cook volume, so I bake them on sheet pans. 

When I rehydrate the onions, after I boil them, they do not stick to the bagel at all. Does anyone have any recommendations on cooking bagels with onions? It would be greatly appreciated :) 

Thanks in advance!

They are:

  1. Which will turn out to be easier: keeping dry onions from burning, or making rehydrated ones stick?
  2. Assuming that both methods succeed, which one makes better bagels?
  3. Does adding dry dehydrated onions inside the dough, instead of sticking them on the surface, give a good result?
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Ballroom Billy on 28 Jan 2019 at 20:11

 I use a 4% Ultra-Tex3 solution to get my toppings to stick. It is amazing. I found out about it from Modernist Bread.

I make the solution up the night before and refrigerate it.

Thanks so much everyone for the info! I am going to try and add the toppings a bit later in the cook and see how that goes. Will keep you updated!