Aside from using scratch recipes and individually hand topping their bagels, Seattle Bagel Bakery kettle boils all of their bagels before they go into the oven. While it may sound strange to drop a ring of dough into a kettle of boiling water, this gives the crisp, outer shell that is essential to a bagel. This traditional method also helps seal the moisture in the dough, giving the inside of the bagel a chewy, dense pull-a-part texture.

Kettle Boiling vs Steam Ovens

The honest and genuine techniques of Seattle Bagel Bakery makes all the difference. Taking shortcuts is not in the equation for. In recent years, a variant of bagel making has emerged, producing what is sometimes called the steam-bagel. To make a steam-bagel, the process of boiling is skipped all together, and the bagels are instead baked in an oven equipped with a steam injection system.

In commercial bagel production, this shortcut requires less labor, since bagels need only be directly handled once, at the shaping stage. Thereafter, the bagels need never be removed from their pans as they are refrigerated and then steam-baked.

None of this really matters of course because these are chips. Delicious chips. But chips none-the-less.

Stick them in your gob and be happy!