The birds are barely chirping and there’s nary a sound anywhere around Willard Square in South Portland this Sunday morning. Absent are the usual flock of early risers who descend on Scratch Baking like busy bees to gobble up some of the most uniquely textured bagels in the Northeast.
Scratch Baking on Willard Square, South Portland
As I walked in to the nearly empty store, the one sole shopper, standing in front of uncharacteristically full bins of bagels, said, “We should have the start of Daylight Savings Time all the time.”
The new clock-time read 7:45 AM (but really 6:45 in eastern standard lingo)—normally a late hour for the breathless bagel crowd.
The one shopper gone, all that remained on Sunday morning DST were the bakers and plenty of bagels
Plenty of bagels: seeded, salt and plain
No matter when you go Scratch Baking it is always busy in the mornings as shoppers cram the shop to get their bagel fix. But there’s so much more to this bakery than America’s favorite morning bread.
Typically there’s always a line for bagel picking (older photo)
The cakes, pastries, cookies and squares are phenomes of home-style, old-fashioned baking. They’re all rich with butter and cream icings; those thick fudgy brownies to luscious lemon squares and a new sweet I saw in the case, lavender iced cream puffs.
Beyond the bagels is the triple header of plenty of cakes, pies/pastries and cookies
Then there’s the daily bread bake—a different one each day. I vowed to come back on Thursday when the bakery makes its rich black bread. I came across a recipe recently for egg salad to lay on top of slices of country loaf. This bread would be perfect. The salad is made by meticulously chopping eggs, crisp cubes of celery, scallions, plenty of salt and pepper, mayonnaise (I use Duke’s Mayonnaise, a southern style mayonnaise that’s very lemony and rich), served open faced on dark crusty country slices topped with thick whole slabs of bacon laid across the top.
Meanwhile, back to those bagels. The texture when toasted or just warm from the bagel oven, has the delicacy of the flakiest croissant, within its guise of sour-dough starter.
The final prize: bagel and cream cheese with all the fixings
Even just plain with good butter spread across the top or rich cream cheese with smoked salmon, tomato, red onion and capers–well, that was my brunch dish enjoyed at home while a big cast-iron Dutch oven filled with yellow eye beans baked slowly to yield by the end of the day a pot of delicious baked beans. I will serve them with slices of Daisy ham (from Bisson’s in Topsham) pool-room style Cole slaw and a thick slice of Omaha Feather Rum Cake, a sponge type cake served with my homemade vanilla-rum ice cream spiked with rum. Now that’s Sunday breakfast and supper at their best.
