Badass Bagels: A Pandemic Pivot Yields Wild Yeast Bagels At Sugar & Olives in Norwalk

If in times of crisis we tend to go back to our roots, then in times of pandemic I suppose it’s only fitting we reach back to our biblical roots. Sourdough may have been discovered by the ancient Egyptians but it has been perfected by Jennifer Balin of Sugar & Olives in the form of Badass Bagels. 

These naturally leavened bagels have a light crunch on the outside, light as air and chewy with a slight tang on the inside. Badass Bagels come in six varieties, including sesame, poppy, smoked sea salt, everything, caraway, and plain, as well as an offering of unique cream cheese flavors including green goddess and pimento scallion—these sourdough bagels may become your new weekend obsession.

So how did it all start? Soon after Jen was forced to close Sugar & Olives in March 2020 due to COVID-19, she turned to the ritual of sourdough bread baking, making three loaves a day, seven days a week during the months of April, May, and June. She ended up mailing loaves to friends and family all over the country. After perfecting her crumb, she decided to take her new hobby to the next level and try her hand at bagels, but not just any bagel, a sourdough bagel.

A quick aside on sourdough. Sourdough refers to the type of starter used to make the bread, or in this case, a bagel. Unlike commercial yeast, sourdough uses a levain, often referred to as a starter, or a mother, which lends its naturally leavened offspring a much more complex and nuanced flavor that unlike is name, isn’t necessarily sour. I found this to be a helpful article debunking my assumptions of sourdough.

While Jen had harnessed the ways of wild yeast and perfected her sourdough bread, she had yet to learn how to construct the perfect bagel. If baking bread is a loose process, bagels are a more structured endeavor. They are handled much more and require about 50% hydration. It took Jen several months to perfect her recipe, which includes a high-gluten non-GMO flour and a very active rye flour-based starter. The bagels that she sells on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings begin several days prior when Jen begins feeding her starter and then making the levain, and then undertaking the 7-hour dough-making process of proofing, shaping, boiling, and finally, topping and baking. The final result is several hundred Badass Bagels she will sell by pre-order to her customers twice a week. All orders are placed by text to the dedicated “bagel hotline.”  “Welcome to bagel land is the text reply you’ll get as a first-time customer.  

While the process is long and labor intensive, Jennifer has enjoyed reconnecting with customers and meeting new ones, and has found much joy in connecting directly with people customers through her bagel hotline. Follow Badass Bagels on Instagram or visit sugarandolives.com to check out their latest bagels and unique cream cheese flavors. Order through 203.816.0028.

Bagel pickup is usually Thursdays from 4-6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 am to 12 noon through a pickup window at Sugar & Olives on Lois Street in Norwalk.