I have made this recipe 6 times in 2 weeks time, and they have been excellent every time. Here are a few tips I've discovered through testing and experience: I have tried substituting brown sugar for white sugar in this entire recipe, including the boil, and they taste equally good but a little different (my wife thinks they are better). 7 minutes of boiling is pointless, as I've done many experiments with these and found that 1:30 each side is the max needed -- nothing longer than that will make it any chewier. Boil with a ROLLING boil, not a simmer as per the recipe. The temp will drop when you add the dough anyhow, so a rolling boil keeps things boiling when the bagels go in. Bake them at 400F for about 20-25 minutes, turning the cookie sheet around halfway through so it bakes evenly. The chewy texture is best achieved through letting them cool and staying out all day (or overnight) before bagging. They will taste less yeasty and more dense and chewy after sitting out. Also, this recipe will yield very small bagels if you make 12 so I suggest doing 7-8 for a regular-sized bagel. Brush them with egg before baking for a glossy surface and save yourself the whole broiling step. If you prefer not to use vegetable oil you can sprinkle yellow cornmeal on the cookie sheet instead. It won't stick and it adds a little bonus flavor underneath. Lastly, I have gotten excellent results using 1 tsp. less yeast (so a total 3.5tsp). Happy bagel making!

I've baked a lot of things and never had such a problem as I did with this recipe. I followed it to the T, using Margarine AND butter where it is noted in the recipe. As an avid pizza maker, I am familiar with how dough should feel, rise, etc. as well as how much flour to add to get the right consistency. This dough was really dense, very heavy, and didn't rise more than 15%. I've handled a lot of dough and this one already was raising a few flags as I kneaded it. My yeast was good because I've been baking all week with the same jar, using the same temp water. The dough seemed so dense that it was if I was suffocating the yeast, which I'm sure isn't possible but that's the impression I got. After barely getting a rise from the dough after 2 sessions, bake time wasn't any more rewarding. I have an oven that runs hot, and after 15 minutes (per recipe) they were still extremely gooey inside. I baked them on the center rack. After another 5 minutes they were still gooey, with hardly a change in texture at all! So I moved them to the bottom rack and added an additional 10 minutes @ 350F, which seemed like overkill but I was determined to make this dough set up. 10 minutes later, after a total of 30 minutes of baking time (recipe calls for 15), they were STILL GOOEY! 40 min @ 400, still gooey. The story continues! They never baked properly. I bake a lot of stuff, and with this many problems I'm giving up on this butter/sugar-loaded recipe for good.

This was my first time making bread in over 10 years, and it turned out perfect! I followed this recipe exactly, and I didn't think it was "too sweet" like many other reviewers. Somebody compared this to Hawaiian Bread but I couldn't agree less. HB is much sweeter, and obviously so. I let my yeast proof for 10 minutes just as the recipe called for, let it rise for about 1.5 hours before putting it into the 9x5 pans, and let it rise another 30 min before baking. I used a PAM spray on the inside of the pans and had no sticking issues whatsoever. I baked for exactly 30 minutes, took the bread out, and removed it from the pans. It took almost an hour to cool down while sitting on the breadboard, but will slice much easier if you wait. Excellent recipe, and definitely one worth tweaking to keep it interesting!

My wife and I made this yesterday morning and it turned out great. We used Vegetable Shortening instead of lard, and cooked it on cast iron. Instead of measuring out the left-over fat for the gravy, I just left it in the pan and eye-balled the rest. A tip for making the gravy, especially if you're using cast iron: Turn down the heat and add as much milk at a time as you can, because the cast iron gets so hot it will evaporate the milk extremely fast unless you can cool it down. Also, use a wire whisk to constantly stir the gravy and break the chunks apart -- whisks always work great for gravy-making. Ours turned out a little on the thick side, but it tasted great. Another tip: if your gravy tastes bland and floury, just add more salt and keep it on the heat a tad longer. Gravy without salt will always taste funny. Great tasting and easy recipe!

Though I haven't tried any other cornbread recipes, this one turned out perfect. We followed the recipe to the T, and I don't know what I'd change, if anything. It is a hair sweet, but that's the point of this recipe, hence the name! If you wanted it less sweet you could cut the sugar in half. Personally I think cornbread tastes better sweet rather than bland and crumbly. I made this in a 12-cupcake pan and it was the perfect amount of batter. We will definitely use this recipe from now on.