Michael Ungar spent five years experimenting with bagel recipes, testing batches labeled A, B, C in his KitchenAid mixer and bringing them to parties for feedback from friends with bagel expertise. He used wine-tasting techniques to analyze crumb texture and flavor, refining the recipe until he landed on what he calls a fantastic bagel. Friends started pushing him to sell them.
So I would just— and it wasn't every day, but it would be like every few weeks, or there'd be a party or potluck or whatever, and I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna make up a batch of bagels. And I would do— I would, you know, my KitchenAid mixer, I could only make 12 bagels worth of dough at a time. So I'd make like an A, B, and C and change some variable and try all these different things and different recipes and, you know, bring them to the parties. And there's certain groups I would show up to with bagels regularly. Oh, that's so cool. That then I had, you know, everyone was eating the bagels, but I would have certain people in the crowd who were like either from the, from the East Coast or Jewish or, or both, or for whatever reason had, you know, real knowledge of bagels, wasn't some native Californian. A bagel acumen, one would say. Yes, had some, had some proven bagel acumen. And we would parse, I'd be like, okay, now we're gonna, we're gonna sniff the bagels, lick the bagels, we're gonna open it up and, you know, All these things, like examine the crumb. And I had been big into wine tasting at one point, so we're gonna like really dive into this and then say like, you know, do we like A, B, or C better? And how does this compare to the batch I made last time? And, and it just evolved over time. And, and 5 years later, I had a bagel that was fantastic, and some of my friends were telling me I should sell them.
