Pipsqueak Wants to Bring Exceptional Hand-Rolled and Boiled Bagels to Milwaukie

Madilyn Gibbons’ passion for bagelmaking was born from a craving. Gibbons lives in Milwaukie, the southern suburb between Lake Oswego and Happy Valley; currently, there are very few options for house-made bagels in Milwaukie, if any. So, the Portland food industry vet started making her own. “It just came from the motivation of wanting a good bagel and not having one,” she says. “There’s not really a bagel shop here. There’s Puddletown Bagels, but there isn’t an old school brick-and-mortar bagel shop.”

This year, Gibbons turned her years-long hobby into a preordered bagel business, soon landing at farmers markets and — hopefully next year — a full-blown bagel shop in the heart of Milwaukie. Pipsqueak Bagels will land at the Milwaukie Farmers Market and Sunnyside Farmers Market when they open for the season in May, serving whole bagels and bagel sandwiches with flavors like rosemary-Maldon salt and jalapeño Cheddar.

Gibbons has been baking for more than a decade. Over the course of her career, Gibbons has worked several different jobs, ranging from cheesemonger to program manager, but she describes her job at Olympia Provisions as her most influential. “I learned a lot about artisanal food,” she says. “It was a really pivotal point in my understanding of food and what it could be.”

Thus, Gibbons’ approach to bagelmaking is similarly traditional: Her two-day process starts with the dough, which uses barley malt syrup; she rolls out each bagel by hand, before they rest overnight. The next day, she boils, bakes, and seeds her bagels. Many would describe the inclusion of barley malt syrup as mandatory; however, a good number of Portland shops don’t use it, according to Gibbons’ supplier. “When you boil in malt syrup, you get that burnish with the bubbles on the outside,” she says. “To me, it’s the essential ingredient. I’ve tried molasses, I’ve tried honey, I’ve tried brown sugar, but nothing replaces that umami sweet flavor, and the chew.”

Currently, Gibbons offers a handful of varieties for pre-order, which includes classics like everything, sesame, and poppyseed; she occasionally veers into more outside-the-box territory, however, rolling rosemary into the dough of her Maldon salt-topped bagels, and swapping in seasonal specials with flavors like cacio e pepe. At the farmers market, she’ll offer a wider selection of schmears, on the bagels or in takeout containers; expect flavors like smoked salmon, everything seasoning, and scallion, plus a rotating flavor.

While Gibbons is focusing on farmers markets for now, she wants to open her own bagel shop in 2025 with her husband and business partner, Cam Gibbons. But in terms of locale, she doesn’t want to stray too far from home. “I’m very ambitiously going for a bagel shop in downtown Milwaukie,” she says. “I’m passionate about building community; that’s why I’m choosing to work in Milwaukie specifically. As a first generation female business owner, community is huge to me.”

Pipsqueak is now available for pre-ordered bagel delivery, transitioning into farmers market bagel pickup in May.