Learn how to make homemade cinnamon raisin bagels with this simple recipe tutorial. You only need a handful of basic ingredients and they taste WAY better than store-bought!
Let’s all agree that cinnamon raisin bagels are the best bagel variety. Everything bagels, you hold nothing on cinnamon and raisins. 🙂 Today I’m teaching you how to make homemade cinnamon raisin bagels with a few basic ingredients and a deliciously dense bread dough.
These bagels are:
- Hot & fresh
- Extra chewy
- Soft in the center
- Golden brown
- Sweet & cinnamon-y
Let’s do this!
Ingredients in Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
This cinnamon raisin bagels recipe is similar to my homemade everything bagels and plain homemade bagels recipes. The only difference is that we’re adding a little vanilla extract, sugar, cinnamon, and raisins to the bagel dough.
- Yeast & Warm Water: Allows the dough to rise. I recommend an instant or active dry yeast.
- Bread Flour: A high protein flour is necessary for making bagels. We want a dense and chewy texture, not soft and airy like cinnamon rolls. Bread flour is the only solution!
- Brown Sugar: Bakeries use barley malt syrup to sweeten the bagel dough—it can be a little difficult to find, but brown sugar is a fine substitute. Read more in my recipe notes below.
- Vanilla Extract: For extra delicious flavor to these sweet bagels.
- Raisins: Use around 3/4 – 1 cup. Dried cranberries are a delicious substitute!
- Sugar & Cinnamon: Knead the dough directly on the mixture. We’ll use our hands to work it into the dough! This method, rather than just mixing it all in, helps create little swirls and pockets of cinnamon sugar. The dough gets a little moist from the sugar, but that’s completely fine.
Reference this Baking with Yeast Guide whenever you work with baker’s yeast. I include practical answers to all of your common yeast questions.
After the dough rises, shape it into 8 separate balls.
Shape Bagels in 2 Easy Steps
Shaping bagels is a lot easier than it looks. You can watch me shape bagels in the video below, where I’m preparing plain and everything bagels. Same method applies to these homemade cinnamon raisin bagels.
- Poke your finger through the center of the dough ball.
- Widen the hole to about 1.5 – 2 inches wide.
Boil the Bagels Before Baking
After you shape the bagels, it’s time to boil them. Why?
- Boiling the bagels gives the bagel its beautiful shine. But looks aren’t everything—this shine is actually a result of the dough’s starches becoming gelatinized. These starches cook to a crisp, shiny coating in the oven. I learned this from Cooks Illustrated.
- Boiling bagels cooks the outer layer of dough, which guarantees they’ll hold their shape when baking.
Add honey or barley malt syrup to the water bath because it adds caramelization and crisp to the crust. Brushing the boiled bagels with egg wash does the same. Don’t skip either!
These homemade bagels are perfection. No need to waste money on store-bought or stand in line at the bakery. Homemade is the ONLY way to do cinnamon raisin bagels. You’re going to love these!
More Homemade Favorites
- Homemade Cinnamon Swirl Bread
- Easy Jalapeño Cheddar Bread
- Homemade Cinnamon Sugar Pop Tarts
- Homemade Brownies
- Homemade Biscuits
- Homemade Everything Bagels
Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 8 bagels
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Learn how to make homemade cinnamon raisin bagels with this simple recipe tutorial. Don’t skip the water bath and egg wash- both provide an extra chewy and golden brown crust.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water
- 2 and 3/4 teaspoons instant or active dry yeast*
- 4 cups (520g) bread flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for work surface and hands*
- 1 Tablespoon (13g) packed light or dark brown sugar (or barley malt syrup)*
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (110g) raisins
- 3 Tablespoons (38g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- coating the bowl: nonstick spray or 1 Tablespoon olive oil
Water Bath
- 2 quarts water
- 1/4 cup (85g) honey (or barley malt syrup)*
Egg Wash
- 1 egg white beaten with 1 Tablespoon water
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm water and yeast together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
- Add the flour, brown sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. Beat on low speed for 2 minutes, then beat in the raisins until combined. The dough is very stiff and will look somewhat dry.
- Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle onto a clean surface. Place the dough on top. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, picking up all that cinnamon sugar. Work as much of the cinnamon sugar mixture as you can into the dough. The dough may become a little wet from the added sugar– that’s ok.
- Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes or until double in size.
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Shape the bagels: When the dough is ready, punch it down to release any air bubbles. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. (Just eyeball it– doesn’t need to be perfect!) Shape each piece into a ball. Press your index finger through the center of each ball to make a hole about 1.5 – 2 inches in diameter. Watch video below for a visual. Loosely cover the shaped bagels with kitchen towel and rest for a few minutes as you prepare the water bath.
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).
- Water bath: Fill a large, wide pot with 2 quarts of water. Whisk in the honey. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-high. Drop bagels in, 2-4 at a time, making sure they have enough room to float around. Cook the bagels for 1 minute on each side.
- Using a pastry brush, brush the egg wash on top and around the sides of each bagel. Place 4 bagels onto each lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. You want the bagels to be a dark golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow bagels to cool on the baking sheets for 20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Slice, toast, top, whatever you want! Cover leftover bagels tightly and store at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Overnight Make Ahead Instructions: Prepare the dough through step 4, but allow the dough to rise overnight in the refrigerator instead of at room temperature for 60-90 minutes. The slow rise gives the bagels wonderful flavor! In the morning, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let the dough rise for 45 minutes at room temperature. Continue with step 5. I don’t recommend shaping the bagels the night before as they may puff up too much overnight.
- Freezing Make Ahead Instructions: Baked bagels freeze wonderfully! Freeze them for up to 3 months, thaw overnight in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then warm to your liking. You can also freeze the bagel dough. After punching down the dough in step 6, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then punch the dough down again to release any air bubbles. Continue with the rest of step 6.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Stand Mixer | Baking Sheets | Parchment Paper or Silicone Baking Mats | Large Pot (such as a large 5.5 quart dutch oven) | Pastry Brush
- Yeast: Use instant or active dry yeast. If using active dry yeast, the rise time may be up to 2 hours. 1 standard packet is about 2 and 1/4 teaspoons, so you will need a little more than 1 packet of yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Bread Flour: Bagels require a high protein flour. Bread flour is a must. Here are all my recipes using bread flour if you want more recipes to use it up. All-purpose flour can be used in a pinch, but the bagels will taste flimsy and won’t be nearly as chewy.
- Barley Malt Syrup: This ingredient can be a little hard to find, but truly gives bagels that traditional malty flavor we all know and love. Most natural food stores carry it. I offer alternatives such as brown sugar in the dough and honey in the water bath; I’ve made bagels with these alternatives AND with barley malt syrup and honestly love both versions.
- Bread Machine: Place the dough ingredients into the pan of the machine. Program the machine to dough or manual, then start. After 9-10 minutes, the dough will be quite stiff. Allow the machine to complete its cycle, then continue with the recipe.
- Halve or Double: You can halve this dough recipe by simply halving all of the dough ingredients (do not halve the water or honey for the boiling step). No changes to the recipe instructions. For best taste and texture and to not overwhelm your mixer with excess heavy dough, I do not recommend doubling this dough recipe. Instead, make separate batches of dough.
- Adapted from a mix of recipes I’ve tried: King Arthur Flour, Cook’s Illustrated, and Complete Book of Breads
Reader Comments and Reviews
These were so easy and came out amazing! I followed each step and 4 hours later had 8 awesome cinnamon raisin bagels. This recipe is definitely a keeper!!
This recipe is absolutely delicious! I made it twice today after my family nearly finished the first batch. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to make homemade bagels. Thank you for the wonderful recipe 🙂
Please help. I’ve made these twice. Both times the dough is very wet. Last time I added do much extra flour. This is not how it should be. I did use bread flour and checked amt carefully when measuring.
Hi Susan! There are a lot of variables that go into the consistency of dough, even down to the weather and humidity in the air. There’s nothing wrong with adding just a little more flour to bring the dough into a less sticky and knead-able consistency. Just be careful not to add too much!
These turned out so good! I followed the recipe exactly, but the bottoms of my bagels began burning within 5minutes of backing and subsequently stuck to the parchment paper underneath. I then had to cut off the bottoms, reduce the heat to 350, and spray the baking sheets with cooking spray (in lieu of parchment paper). This seemed to have worked better, but sadly that the cost of the bagel bottoms.
Hello Sally,
I made the everything bagels last time, and they turned out amazing! I am never going back to the store to buy bagels! Thank you so much for the recipe!
This time, I am planning to make cinnamon raisin bagels and was wondering if I can use honey instead of granulated sugar.
Honey in the dough shouldn’t be a problem, Zahara!
Sally I just followed your recipe – step by step. I’ma stroke survivor and was told that I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself less alone create anything. Well, today with my hubby’s assistance I created both “everything” – 11 & “cinnamon craisin”- 9 bagel. My brother came over and had tears in his eyes. I got thumbs up as mouths were too full and plenty of hugs and tears. These are soft and yummy. Thank you Sally!
Vivia, thank you so much for sharing this; I was so happy to read it! I hope you’re incredibly proud, as homemade bagels are no easy feat for anyone!
Help! I just made these bagels for the first time, and the bottoms of them are BLACK. Like burnt burnt. What did I do wrong? From what I can tell I followed the recipe/directions exactly. Set the oven at 425, lined baking sheets with parchment paper, water bath, rotated halfway through. I should add they were only in the oven for about 17 minutes before I noticed the burning smell and took them out. They were on the center rack – should they bake on the top rack? Any advice is appreciated! I’d love to make these again, but with the time commitment I want to make sure I have a game plan first.
Hi Tegan, we’re happy to help troubleshoot. Are your baking pans particularly dark and/or thin? Darker and thinner pans can often cause baked goods to bake much faster and sometimes burn on the bottoms. Do you have an oven thermometer? It sounds like your oven may be a bit hotter than it reads. For next time, you can always turn down the temperature a bit and move the pan a rack further from the heating element, keeping in mind that the bake time may vary with these changes. Hope this helps for your next batch!
I love your bread recipes . The tutorials are great and the results are always perfect. I’m making the cinnamon raisin bread tomorrow and the loaf bread. Am working my way up to bagels. Thanks
These were a huge hit! Very tasty and the perfect texture.
I was quite concerned because the dough in the mixer was quite wet and sticky, not dry and stiff like you described. I did add more flour but it was still quite sticky throughout the entire process. I was afraid to add too much flour.
I’m a measurer, and followed the weights and volumes precisely (520g bread flour, 360 ml water, etc). What can I do to get the dough closer to stiff and dry consistency?
Hi James, There are a lot of variables that can go into the consistency of dough, down to even the weather/humidity. If you find your dough is especially wet/loose, you can certainly add more flour (1 Tablespoon at a time) until the dough comes into a workable consistency. Hope this helps!
Hi, I’m about to make these and would just like to ask if you are using pure vanilla extract powder or liquid? I’m in Europe so trying to convert your recipe :-).
Thanks!
Hi Emma, Our extract is a liquid. Hope you enjoy the bagels!
Delicious
Can you make double batch and use the honey water twice?
Hi Marnie, that should work fine to reuse the water, but we do recommend making two separate batches rather than doubling.
The Homemade Everything Bagel recipe was my introduction to Sally’s Baking Addiction. I was looking for a bagel recipe during COVID and found this one. I have made the Everything version and the Cinnamon Raisin version–they are both amazing! I can’t go back to store bought! However, I always have an issue with the Cinnamon Raisin ones. After I form the 8 bagels and let them rest before their water bath dip, they seem to deflate way more than the Everything ones. The result is a flatter, less rounded-shaped bagel. It still tastes great, but doesn’t look much like a bagel. If I left the shaped bagels on the tray for a longer period of time (30 minutes? 1 hour?) before the bath, do you think that would help them puff up again?
Hi Brian, so glad to hear you love the bagels! The reason you’re having this issue with the cinnamon raisin bagels is because cinnamon inhibits yeast activity in dough. So the cinnamon bagels won’t have quite the same rise as the everything bagels. Raisins can also weigh the dough down a bit. You could try letting them have a longer rise like you mention, or even slightly increase the amount of yeast to counter the cinnamon, but we haven’t tested it that way so are unsure of the results. If you give it a try, please report back!
These are simply amazing! They taste fantastic, and are quick and easy to make. The only thing I’m going to turn next time is doubling the cinnamon since we like a stronger cinnamon flavor.
Best bagel recipe I’ve made so far! Other recipes I followed, the bagels came out dense and chewy, but not these! I added a little cinnamon into the dough before kneading it with the sugar and cinnamon and it came out great.
You call for 4 cups of bread flour or 520 grams. Isn’t 4 cups 480 grams? Just want to get this right, your recipes rock.
Hi Jeff, We measure 1 cup of bread flour at about 123-127g. 480-500g is how we tested this recipe.
Is there anything different I need to do when making the dough if I want to add fruit to it, like blueberries or apples?
Hi Jennifer, we’ve done these with fresh blueberries before and the dough gets a little wet when you fold them in (add them when you would add the raisins here), so use very floured hands. Otherwise, dried blueberries are a fantastic option!
I love your website and your recipe and I followed everything. I even make another flavour: Same basic recipe but I add cinnamon and cranberries and the other recipe I made cheese and sundried tomatoes.
I have a question though why my bagel seems like rubberized the following day. It’s not hard but when you chew it rubbery. I did not toast it or put it in the oven for I want to know if it’s still soft the following day. Is it normal for the bagel to be rubberized on the next day. Please advise.
Thank you so much.
That’s the only
Hi Felma, we’re glad you’re enjoying this bagel recipe! Bagels should be quite chewy, but if they were overly dense/rubbery, the dough could have been over-proofed. They naturally won’t taste as fresh the next day, but toasting them is always a great option.
Made these today they my wife loved them! I’ll admit, having made only savoury bagel previous, I was REALLY worried about how “wet” the dough was while kneading….but I followed your process and they turned out great!
Hi! This recipe is awesome, and I think I’ve mastered it. One thing that seems to happen everytime: they are burnt on the bottom even if perfectly baked overall. Is this a common problem? Advice on how to fix this? Thank you so much!
Hi Hannah! What position in the oven are you baking the bagels? We usually recommend using the lower third of the oven.
Hannah – Same happened to me. All burnt on the bottom! Smoke alarm went off and the cats scattered! LOL! Opened our doors in minus 14 degree weather. Although, when we cut the bottoms off they were delicious. Lucky the fire department didn’t show up. I would of had to feed them. LOL! I baked mine on the middle rack after reading your comment. Maybe our ovens run to hot?
I love your yeast lessons and I no longer have fear of yeast. I made the breads, bagels, pretzels and dinner rolls. I plan on trying more of the recipes within the lessons. My dinner rolls didn’t come out as good as the rest of the items I bake. They were more like biscuits so I’m going to try again.
I loved your recipe! It was so easy to make! I love your site!
I have cinnamon baking chips. Can I use them in this recipe?
Hi Jayne, certainly. Sounds delicious!
What can I use in place of honey or barley syrup? Just don’t have either on hand at the moment 🙂
Hi TP, we haven’t tested it, but some readers have reported success using brown sugar, molasses, or maple syrup in place of the honey/barley syrup. Or, you could use baking soda if desired, but the coating would be more like a soft pretzel.
Loved this recipe! Was easy to follow…they turned out perfect
Loved this recipe! Was easy to follow…they turned out perfect
Great recipe! I really want to make maple cinnamon bagels! Do you think using maple extract instead of vanilla would be enough for the maple flavor or would I also add maple syrup, if so how much do you suggest? I was also thinking about adding more cinnamon. I’d appreciate any suggestions!
Hi Rachel, that sounds delicious! We’d start with just a bit of maple extract—it’s quite potent and should give you the maple flavor you desire. You might also enjoy adding the cinnamon topping from this bread. Let us know what you try!
Can I omit the raisins and do everything else as written?
Sure can, Samantha
These were so good!! My dough didn’t rise much overnight but I continued with the recipe. They were somewhat hard to bit into unless toasted… is this because of the dough not rising much? Or something else I may have done wrong? Thanks!! Love you recipes.
Hi Samantha, I suspect it’s because the dough didn’t rise properly and that’s why the bagels taste particularly dense and hard. Did you set the dough out at room temperature in the morning for 45 minutes? Extending that time to give the dough more time to expand can help.
I halved the recipe and it turned out so good! I’ve only made two batches of bagels before and this one was a major success. So delicious! Thank you for the recipe.