NY Bagel Cafe & Deli - Baking the Bagel

The bagel is one of those elusive goods. Although enjoyed at home and on the go, served in cafes, delis and diners throughout the country, the average person will rarely make a bagel in the comforts of their own kitchen. It is no easy feat, not least because of the wide variety of methods that you can potentially employ in order to bake the perfect bagel. The traditional method is made by mixing wheat flour, salt, water and yeast, often adding yeast. You then assemble the shape of the bagel - often a harder technique to perfect than it looks - before leaving them for at least 12 hours at a certain temperature. After which you dip the formed bagels into boiling water, and then bake in the oven.

Although this is the basic form of the recipe it is hotly disputed as the exact science of the perfect bagel. The outside needs to be crunchy, but the inside chewy. It is also best served freshly baked, which means a lot of effort in the morning to produce the desired bagel for breakfast or lunch. NY Bagel Cafe attributes its success to this very reason. It claims to have perfected the baking method, which harks back to the Polish Jewish immigrants of the turn of the 20th Century in New York. The popularity of the bagel baked with their methods has seen a growth ever since for replications of the famous New York bagel countrywide. Where usual bakers use the lesser valued liquid barley malt, NY Bagel bakes with a better quality powdered variety. The bagels are then rested for 12 hours, optimum time for developing the right texture that blends crunchy and chewy. They are then kettle boiled and opt for a traditional hearth baked finish, for the best taste of New York.

There are some slightly different methods: the Montreal style bagel, the Chicago steamed variety. Bagels can also be store bought of course and toasted at home. Nothing really compares however to a true New York style bagel; freshly baked, freshly toasted and topped with your choice of filling.

That’s where companies such as NY Bagel Cafe have got their formula right. A good bake, fresh each day and made on site using the best ingredients. A method dating back over a hundred years is difficult to argue with - and their growing number of locations is proving that it isn’t just New York where the bagel is a proving lucrative business.