I've recently started making my own cream cheese, which naturally has me making bagels a bit more often. They're a decent amount of work (I don't have a stand mixer), but my most recent batch turned out so well. Shaping still needs some improvement, but the taste and texture is on point.

I swung by my favorite local bakery and grabbed a bag of their bagels, and was shocked and delighted to find that their bagels taste exactly like mine. I was definitely expecting mine to be sub-par compared to theirs. Just wanted to share my happy moment, this feels like a pretty big accomplishment