Our Weekday Bagel Bake-Along Thread🥯🎉

Feb 16 (edited) • 🔴LIVE EVENTS & COFFEE HOURS☕️

Tomorrow is our first Bagel Bake-Along out if 2🤪 This will be our thread to chat as we bake🌾

For funsies, let's look at some bagel fun facts & history😊⤵️

🥯The Origins of the word itself:

The word “bagel” comes from the Yiddish word beygl, which is derived from the German beugel, meaning “ring” or “bracelet.”

🥯 A real bagel has standards:

High-gluten flour. Yeast. Salt. Water. Malt. That’s it. It’s boiled, then baked until rich caramel brown — not pale and blond. Traditionally it weighed three ounces (later up to five), crackled slightly when bitten, and was meant to be eaten warm and within hours. According to tradition, the bagels we're about to embark on are not the "OG" 🤭 but you can easily adjust them to be! (Note for the OG recipe is on the recipe page!👉🏼 https://crumbtablecollection.lovable.app/?recipe=07355605-b745-4d50-a34b-8fe5ffa1b88b)

🥯 The Jan Sobieski story? Just a story:

There’s a popular legend that the first bagel was made in honor of Jan III Sobieski after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. But according to Maria Balinska, that’s myth. The first written reference to bagels in Jewish Poland actually appears in 1610 — decades earlier — in community regulations from Kraków.

🥯 They were symbolic before they were trendy:

In those 1610 Kraków records, bagels were mentioned as gifts for women after childbirth. Their circular shape symbolized continuity, unity, and life. Practical and meaningful.

🥯 New York bagels were union-made:

When Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought bagels to New York City, bagel-making became serious business. Bagel Bakers Local 338 formed in the early 1900s and tightly controlled production. By 1915 they controlled 36 bakeries in New York and New Jersey. The original New York bagels were hand-rolled, boiled, baked, smaller, denser, crustier, and deeply chewy.

🥯 Machines changed everything:

For nearly fifty years, Local 338 dominated — until industrial bagel machines arrived in the early 1960s. After that, bagels went national. Frozen distribution and mass production turned a traditional Jewish bread into an American breakfast staple.

🥯 Old World methods still exist:

Some modern bakeries still follow traditional techniques: long cold fermentation, hand shaping, kettle boiling, plank baking. Those methods are direct links back to the Lower East Side bagels of the early 1900s.

From 1610 Kraków to your kitchen counter — that’s a pretty wild journey for a little ole bagel🤪

I'm excited to bake these with you guys tomorrow!! I know some of you can't, but let me know if you'll be able to join us for the weekday bake👇🏼

Yes, I'm coming! 🎉

No, I can't make it🥺

Maybe, I'll try🤔

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