How to make a totally smashing bagel

June 1, 2008

Smashed or sober?

Is this something you’re used to being asked at breakfast?

This is the question that is posed to you at The Bagel Smashery in Hoboken, NJ. They don’t toast their bagels, they smash ‘em. Or in their words, they “tease the most avantgarde bagel pallet and stimulate the interest of those curiousity seekers.” Whoa. Like totally far out, man.

The Bagel Smashery may not be my all time favorite bagel place in the competitive NY/NJ area of fantastic bagelries (Ess-a-Bagel and Ronnie’s beat it out), but it is certainly very good and offers a wide variety of spreads and bagel sandwich combinations. Obviously one of their best is the excellent chocolate peanut butter combo. To go along with their smashing theme, the walls of their little cafe are decorated with a variety of mallets and vices. In the back they have a lot of what appear to be panini presses, with flat surfaces instead of grill lines. Their crazy technique is an interesting one and can be easily replicated at home if there’s not a Bagel Smashery near you.

Directions To make a chocolate and peanut butter smashed bagel, first slice your bagel and apply a generous heaping of (what I think is nutella, but for lack of argument) melted chocolate and peanut butter. Next, spray a sheet of tin foil with a bit of cooking spray, put your prepared bagel inside and seal it up. Put your bagel package into a preheated flat panini press and heat it up for a minute or two. This could also be made without a panini press, using the heavy pan method.*

I won’t say it’s necessarily better than your usual bagel toasting method, just different. And a welcome change if you’re a frequent bagel consumer, like myself. While I can’t promise how this technique will do with a tiny Lender’s Bagel, it works fantastic with a big fluffy NY/NJ style bagel.

Enjoy!

*Put your wrapped bagel in a pre-heated non-stick pan, place a cast iron pan on top and push down, to press the bagel.