"Bagels may seem straightforward at first glance. A few years ago, Ed Levine wrote in the New York Times that a bagel is simply a round bread made from a handful of basic ingredients: high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast, and malt. The dough is boiled and then baked, resulting in a rich caramel color. It shouldn’t be pale or bland. A proper bagel should weigh around four ounces or less and produce a satisfying crack when you bite into it, not a soft whoosh. Ideally, it should be enjoyed warm and consumed within four to five hours of being made. Anything less wouldn’t qualify as a true bagel.
While a bagel is indeed "a round bread" with a hole in the middle, it represents so much more than that. Here, we believe that it’s the story behind the food—beyond just the delicious bite we take—that elevates it beyond mere sustenance. If that wasn’t the case, why not just take a pill for nutrition like they did on The Jetsons instead of savoring a thoughtfully prepared meal?
Bagels are a bread that connects us through challenging times, aspirations, creativity, good fortune, and, of course, great food.
Our dream of making bagels wasn’t about creating something radically “innovative,” like the iPod or a groundbreaking scientific theory. It was really quite simple. We wanted to honor the bagel's roots by crafting hand-shaped, crusty, chewy bagels that we could be proud of—true to the recipes that have been passed down for centuries."
