Professional Bagel Makers
Since January, we have been making breads in our woodfired oven for the Kona Sunset Market on Wednesday afternoons. This market is a perfect place to offer baked goods because we are able to make them right before, rather than the night before as we would have to for a morning market.
One of our first offerings was pita bread as it was one of the easier breads to make from our woodfired oven cookbook and it was a bread that really can only be made in a woodfired oven (or similar) as they bake at temperatures higher than a conventional oven. We make both spelt and whole wheat pitas and they are incredibly delicious and fast to make. The recipe we use is from our woodfired oven cookbook - From the Wood-Fired Oven: New and Traditional Techniques for Cooking and Baking with Fire.
We have two other woodfired oven cookbooks and this one is BY FAR the best. The chapters on fire design alone make it a worthwhile purchase.
We have experimented with some other bread products in our oven besides pitas, but the only one that has really taken off at the market is our bagels. Hawaii is (unsurprisingly) not known for their bagels and as far as I can tell, the best bagels (other than ours!) in town come from Costco. There was a huge hole in the market for bagels and when our WWOOFer, Sean, suggested we start making them for market, it was a no-brainer to give it a shot.
The first week we brought bagels was in late January and we made just one or two dozen and sold them out almost right away. Since then we have increased to well over 100 bagels on a Wednesday market and we often sell out of the most popular varieties.
This is the recipe we use for our bagels and so far it has been so good that we haven't needed or wanted to try out another. However, we are looking for a good whole wheat bagel recipe so if anyone has one, please pass it on.
Since our recipe only makes plain bagels, we have gotten pretty creative coming up with different flavors and toppings. Our weekly standards are onion/garlic, cheese, everything, chocolate chip, chia/flax, and cinnamon/cranberry.
We also do a bagel of the week to (usually) highlight a produce item or herb from the farm. So far, our bagel of the week varieties have been:
- Pizza - a tomato bagel with garlic, onion, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes filled with mozzarella cheese and topped with parmesan
- Veggie - a bagel with shredded carrots, tomato, minced onions and peas in the dough with a wilted kale and cheese center
- Pesto - a basil and garlic bagel with ribbons of parmesan throughout the bagel and a basil, garlic and parmesan topping
- Southwest - a tomato and habanero bagel with minced onion and garlic added to the dough. Pepper jack cheese throughout the bagel and jack cheese and taco seasoning topping
- Valentines Day Bagel - a thimble-berry bagel (a berry similar to a raspberry that grows on our farm) with a cinnamon sugar topping
Coming up for bagel of the week we have a couple sweet varieties - carrot cake and s'mores as well as a pretzel bagel. To get our bagels, as well as all of our other great produce offerings, come see us at the Kona Sunset Market - mention that you saw this blog post and try a bagel on the house!