I’m irrationally obsessed with the use of everything bagel spices on other pastries. When a media outlet ‘discovered’ everything bagel doughnuts at a certain D.C. shop in July, I had to interject that another doughnut shop actually began selling them months earlier. Ahem.
I’ve found a local pretzel with everything spice and two area bakers who are making excellent everything bagel croissants.
I found the most spell-binding version at Supermoon in New York. Its New York croissant is stuffed with cream cheese, lox, and magic. Masterful and incomparable.
See stunning professional pictures of Supermoon here.
It was a pleasure to learn about malasadas in the course of this research. It allowed me to appreciate “Malasadas: The Hawaiian Roll’s Bad-Boy Cousin” when I serendipitously stumbled across it. I greeted the author on social media, which led to a most delightful exchange with an industry rockstar.
Oddly enough, I don’t actually like everything bagels. I think plain without cream cheese – just the humble bagel – is the only way to evaluate the baker’s skill and bagel’s essence. I did warn this was an irrational obsession.
December 2017 additions:
In researching Philadelphia’s Federal Donuts for this story, I learned they also attempted to make an everything bagel doughnut, but weren’t satisfied with their experiment.
Yes, we tried to make an Everything Bagel donut. No, it wasn’t very good. https://t.co/sbDENAleMj pic.twitter.com/72QXd6R8lE
— FederalDonuts (@FederalDonuts) March 11, 2015
January 2018 additions:
Another (big, booming) voice shares my enthusiasm for Supermoon.
Something artistic is happening here.
Spring-Summer 2018 additions:
The chef and co-owner of Black Seed Bagels of New York experimented with everything rugelach in the summer of 2018.
Fall 2018:
I’m not sure of this recipe’s date, but here’s another everything bagel rugelach.
Succumbing to curiosity, I went to Long Island to see the original everything bagel doughnut.
In Cravings: Hungry for More, author Chrissy Teigen introduces an everything bagel cream cheese breakfast bake.
In November 2018, I spied an everything croissant at Patisserie Chanson in New York. I didn’t order it because I had other priorities, but I made a mental note to go back for it.
December addition:
What’s better than a warm Parker House roll? One with a salty, seedy everything-bagel topping. https://t.co/vmqmJhtFyA pic.twitter.com/xXRVggYn00
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 16, 2018
Add ice cream.
This is the first ice cream I’m aware of. Last year, I found something broadly in the same genre. Salt & Straw created a New York-inspired flavor that incorporated rye plus strawberry cheesecake elements. It was sold at Daily Provisions.
Additionally,
Early 2019:
When I saw this post …
… it inspired me to search for the bakery’s own picture. In the process, I learned the everything croissant has been on the Daily Provisions menu since at least the spring of 2017. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This video is instructive.
I also missed that Starbucks introduced an everything croissant in January 2018.
Lastly, I’m clipping this just to have it here in my aggregation: The ‘everything’ topping isn’t just for bagels anymore. News flash: Everything bagel seasoning is now on everything. Similarly, Everything Seasoning Has Arrived At Restaurants Across The U.S. For that matter, what’s the history of everything bagel spice in the first place? While we’re at it, we should meet Everyone Who Invented the Everything Bagel.
May 2019:
Buttercream Bakeshop makes a flakie, a croissant shaped like a muffin. Though the bakery makes superb European-style buttercream for its excellent cupcakes, I don’t get there too often. I’ve only seen sweet flakies until now, but I just found they’re serving an everything flakie with cream cheese, pictured right-side up and upside down.
June 2019:
New acquisitions from two new bakeries.
Add an explainer: Everything You Need to Know About the True Origins of the Everything Bagel.
Add a Rammy award for Unconventional Diner, winner of Pastry Chef of the Year from the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.
Summer 2019:
This is new to me but chronologically an oldie. Rockaway Beach Bakery has been making an everything ham and cheese croissant for three years. According to my research, the genre first appeared in early 2015, so this from mid 2016 is relatively early in the arc of history.
This one also launched in New York in 2016 at a since closed café.
Here is another relatively early adopter.
The media reacts to the original, determining that the “Everything Doughnut from The Doughnut Project is the latest breakfast hybrid craze.”
The same media outlet cited cupcakes in its history of everything bagels, headlined “Nobody really knows why bagels exist.”
The Wall Street Journal reports on A Doughnut That Has Everything, Just Like…a Bagel.
If it’s a trend, it’s not brand-new. Nonetheless, Washingtonian magazine included this in its 2019 Best of Washington issue:
Best Breakfast Trend
Everything-Spice Everything
Because poppy seeds and garlic make anything betterIf you’re a fan of everything bagels, then we’re happy to report that the flavor is showing up on all manner of morning goodies: cream-cheese-filled pop tarts (at Northside Social), croissants (at Junction Bakery and Little Beast), even doughnuts (at B. Doughnut). We’ll take one of each.
And this from the Washington Post coverage of A food hall that has everything, including an everything bagel doughnut:
But of all the things I ate at Quarter Market, the one that permanently left its mark was, well, a doughnut. Specifically, District Doughnut’s everything cream cheese, a baked good that divides people faster than “The Big Bang Theory.” People love to hate the everything cream cheese on principle alone, for assuming an identity that is neither bagel nor doughnut.
Its real treachery, I’m convinced, lies in its ability to point out our prejudices — our unwillingness to accept that the flavors of a classic bagel might work just as well in a lighter and more efficient form: a yeasted doughnut filled with whipped chive-and-onion cream cheese. District Doughnut is not taking away your everything bagel. It’s simply offering it in a sleek, aerodynamic package. It’s genius, and it’s delicious.
Dominique Ansel Bakery is celebrating its anniversary with a New York Collection that includes an everything bagel pastry.
In detail, the “‘Everything Bagel & Schmear’ Pavlova” is a “honey graham cracker meringue ‘bagel’ topped with poppy seed, sesame, and toasted coconut, filled with cheesecake mousse and sour cherry jam.” Exquisite.
Add this from the probable originator of the everything bagel croissant.
In his review of Bon Temps, Los Angeles Times critic Bill Addison writes “[t]he sweets alone are reason to come to the restaurant.” With regards to the morning pastry case, Addison says “[t]he cream cheese-stuffed croissant covered in everything bagel seasoning is, yeah, pretty much everything.”
I missed this when it was originally posted, but here’s the Magnolia Bakery spin/spoof.
I stumbled across the work of baker Chelsey White, who fashioned a cake of bagel and lox icons.
Her how-to video.
She previously conceptualized these everything bagel cupcakes.
Much earlier, the stylist-photographer couple Karen Tack and Alan Richardson published a bagel and lox recipe in their 2010 What’s New, Cupcake? book. Theirs was a lemon poppy seed cupcake topped with a mini doughnut “bagel,” orange fruit chew candy “lox,” and green licorice “scallions.”
Here is a late 2019 recipe for everything bagel puff pastry cheese straws.
Presenting my first new croissant of 2020.
January 2020 addition:
Backtracking, it appears that this bakery first introduced its everything baguette in December 2019.
Now back to spring 2020 with this find.
As reported on Marie Claire, model Gigi Hadid had an everything bagel birthday cake. It was made by Cake Boss Buddy Valastro, who competed with Duff Goldman on their Food Network show to bake the best everything bagel cake.
The pandemic has popularized pancake cereal, mini pancakes served in a cereal bowl. A Today Show food stylist adapted the concept to mini everything bagels.
The calendar has turned to summer 2020 and we meet an everything bagel cookie.
Add macarons.
A recipe for everything rugelach.
Everything-seasoned pączki.
A celebrity endorses the original.
The jar war is intensifying as Costco Sells an Everything Bagel Seasoning That People Swear Is Better Than Trader Joe’s.
Joy Huang, publisher of the Joyosity account above and The Cooking of Joy blog, told me about two other sources of everything bagel doughnuts. Her references to Oh Doughnuts and Blackbird Doughnuts deepened my knowledge of the topic.
Blackbird publicized its version in January 2016, around the time B Doughnut did as well. These two precede the Doughnut Project by more than a month, illustrating that the Doughnut Project was not the first to make a public introduction of its creation.
Oh Doughnuts is one of the early Canadian representations.
Inexplicably, B Doughnut has deleted some early posts about its version. While researching this, I found their post clipping several mid-2017 stories.
- Bagel Doughnuts Exist & Twitter Can’t Handle
- Malasadas-inspired ’bagel doughnuts’ come to D.C. pop-up bakery
- Where to Get Those Bagel Doughnuts That Are Confusing the Internet
- Bagel Donuts Topped With Chives, Bacon, and Lox Are Here, Please Discuss
- The bagel doughnut is the latest bizarre food trend to divide the internet
- People Don’t Know How To Feel About Everything Bagel Doughnuts
After so many years of aggregation, I only recently recognized a flaw in my (un-)reasoning. I’ve been blurring the everything bagel croissant and everything bagel doughnut.
According to my research, Fiorello Dolce remains the undisputed originator of the version based on a croissant-like pastry. The most controversial form is the doughnut-based pastry. B Doughnut and Blackbird publicized theirs within days of each other in January 2016, so that appears to be the beginning of the doughnut version.
I began this research questioning the perception that B Doughnut was first to introduce it within D.C. proper. They were not. As for inventing the everything bagel doughnut itself, it appears true the company can claim credit for introducing it the same week as one other shop, these being the first two cases known to me.
Entering autumn 2020 with this. File under: why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?
Holiday 2020 brings everything bagel babka.
Saw another croissant on social media.
A major ice cream player enters the game and the media comments.
When a bakery referred to a bagel cake in a bagel cookie post, I was deeply intrigued. Red Gate Bakery describes its bagel cake as a “sweet and savory mashup [that] has it all: ‘pumpernickel’ (aka chocolate and vanilla marble cake) layers, brown butter vanilla bean cream cheese frosting, and the pièce de résistance: a hearty coating of everything-bagel spices. That’s right, we’ve got sesame, we’ve got poppies, we’ve got garlic, we’ve got onion — and you know what? It tastes GOOD. Like goodgood. It’s the breakfast treat we never knew we needed, and that you need too.”
After experimenting with a familiar cream cheese and everything seasoning combination, Yeast Nashville settled on a sausage and Havarti everything kolache in 2021.
A second pizza introduces itself to New York. One offering at the new Stretch Pizza is made with everything spices and cream cheese.
With 2021 as the “Summer of NYC,” I foresee a lot of fieldwork in Manhattan. On a recent outing, I found a novelty: the first everything bagel scone known to me.
Another novelty is the scallion cream cheese cruffin at the newly opened Edgar’s Bakehouse in Augusta, Georgia. The menu describes it as a “croissant popover muffin with everything bagel seasoning and filled with scallion cream cheese.”
Not sure when this bakery introduced its everything croissant, but the bakery’s name is my credo.
Another new-to-me first is the everything bagel babka Bakey is introducing in Boston.
Winter 2021-22 goods:
On first glance, I don’t understand this, but I’m curious to learn more.
I baked everything bagel bao buns from the book Mooncakes & Milk Bread.
This is a logical savory exercise that underscores the popularity of everything on everything.
Ovenly bakery called this a pancake special. It tasted more like a biscuit with a cake-like texture.
The fifth picture of goods at a new Brooklyn bakery is an everything cruller with cream cheese and lox. This is the first cruller to join my crazy aggregation here.
Cookies: The New Classics by Jesse Szewczyk includes a recipe for everything bagel biscotti. It’s visible in the Google Books preview.
Early 2022 breaking news from Jeni’s Ice Cream:
A vegan doughnut from Seattle.
The recipient of this cake comments in all caps that it was amazing.
Fresh Baguette bakery introduces a hybrid croissant-bagel named the Cro’gel.
Summer 2022 begins with Canadian representation.
This aggregation has contained only food until now. Enter the everything bagel as fashion statement.
Zabar’s, the storied New York institution, collaborated with Coach on a line of bags and clothing this spring.
Back to food.
Feast your eyes on another cookie.
Stuffed Cookies in L.A. puts an everything bagel cookie in its eighth-anniversary collection in fall 2022. The company also posted this video about the cookie.
This New Jersey bakery revises its doughnut into a sourdough recipe, per this October 2022 post:
Not sure when this was introduced, but a November tweet by a New York food critic drew my attention to this everything kolache.
In December 2022, a blogger reposted her everything bagel sufganiyot recipe.
The D.C. pioneer revises its creation and introduces the Dough-gel.
Highlights of early 2023 include a chocolate everything bagel doughnut in New York.
2023 update: “The Rise Of Crumbl: How Six Cookies Became A National Phenomenon” reports this was the worst selling flavor in company history.
Meet a breakfasty Italian cookie.
https://twitter.com/kingarthurflour/status/1572933741235896321
Say bonjour to the croissant à tout from buzzy Brooklyn bakery L’Appartement 4F.
This was apparently a short-lived experiment at Disney World.
The fine art of stealing popular ideas.
Ralph Lauren’s coffee brand did a special doughnut in Hong Kong.
The everything bagel is a metaphor to commentator Ezra Klein. “The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism” is this, he argues:
You might assume that when faced with a problem of overriding public importance, government would use its awesome might to sweep away the obstacles that stand in its way. But too often, it does the opposite. It adds goals — many of them laudable — and in doing so, adds obstacles, expenses and delays. If it can get it all done, then it has done much more. But sometimes it tries to accomplish so much within a single project or policy that it ends up failing to accomplish anything at all.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape.
A New York bakery has a fluffy pretzel on its regular menu, seen in the second picture.
Not sure when they introduced it, but Unregular Bakery posted its trendy round croissant in January 2024.
Sadly, the New York original doughnut is no more. The Doughnut Project closed the last weekend of February 2024. Needless to say, I visited for a last taste of their legendary doughnut, whose appearance is significantly different from my 2018 picture above.
STOP THE PRESSES! Actual everything bagel cupcakes from a suburban Atlanta cupcakery! Posted on April 1, 2024, with no joke in the caption.
Ess-a-Bagel of New York is making pink bagels for a collaboration with the Museum of Ice Cream. The filling is cream cheese gelato garnished with everything bagel seasoning.
New to me in summer 2024: An everything hot dog at Crif Dogs in the East Village of Manhattan. Its combination of cream cheese, scallions, and everything seasoning was excellent. Here is my photo and the official glamour shot.
More bagel fashion. They say their everything seasoning is on the swoosh.
Somehow I stumbled across this 2012 bagel cupcake by Reality Bites Cupcakes of New York. The owner starred in the show Reality Cupcakes, which aired on the Food Network for one season in 2018.
Summer/fall 2024 NYC additions:
The preceding demanded field research. I tried it, along with cinnamon sugar.
Tall Poppy, a new Manhattan bakery, makes an everything cruffin.
October 2024 New York doughnuts.
The NYT published a best bagels story in October 2024 and I also noted “Respect The Schmear: Bagel Pros Say THIS Is The Ideal Amount Of Cream Cheese” from the Huffington Post. The former informed me that a NYC cupcakery operates a bagel shop in Brooklyn and the latter is somewhat relevant to what I’m doing on Oct. 26, 2024. I created an everything bagel cake and it’s making its public debut at the Cake Picnic.
Cake Life Bake Shop of Philadelphia first introduced an everything bagel croissant in 2017. Its 2024 version is below. The bakery is well known for its cupcakes. It made three Cupcake Wars appearances and won one competition. It also won on Winner Cake All and Cookie, Cupcake, Cake, plus the best bakery award in the Philadelphia magazine Best of Philly contest.
Doughnuts at a New York restaurant.
Kraft introduced everything bagel mac and cheese in late 2024 and a spring 2025 story reported on its expected return.
In late summer 2025, I found new-to-me chocolate with everything bagel seasoning by Hammond’s and The Meadow.
Venerable New York food critic Robert Sietsema is asking, “Have We Had Enough of Everything?” In an August 2025 essay, he writes, “The everything bagel was happy to be itself for a time, gradually becoming more popular until it outstripped all but the plain bagel in popularity at the city’s 500 or so bagel bakeries. But the seasonings on top became a thing in themselves, and the everything bagel sired an entire family of foods. Indeed, by 2021 everything spices were to be found on nearly everything. I watched it happen, and took photographs of new usages as they appeared.“
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 