I love Rose’s “The Bread Bible” and have enjoyed working my way through it.  I’ve made the bagel recipe several times with great success.  My question is: how can I achieve an authentic onion-y flavor in my bagels?  When we were in New York and had bagels at Essa Bagels, my husband swears that his onion bagel was fully flavored with onion.  So far, each time I make the bagels, I have tried adding to Rose’s recipe:  1/2 cup in one version, and 3/4 cup of finely diced onions in another batch; dehydrated onions in another batch, onion powder (which I didn’t like) at another baking session…..So far, I just can’t seem to get the flavor right.  And 3/4 cup of onions seems like a lot, even for the batch of 10 bagels.  Any suggestions for anything else that I can try? Thank you!

Just off the top of my head, but it seems like you could cook onions in the water and use that water in your dough plus the onions.  Also, you could add onions to the water you boil the bagels in.  Have you tried an internet search already?

Also, you could cook down a large batch of onions to a caramely paste—that would make the onion flavor intense, but also tastier and sweeter.  You can then add the paste to your dough.

Thanks, Matthew, for the suggestions.  I have tried searching elsewhere on the internet without much luck, but I haven’t seen your ideas, so that will be my next step.