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Every time I get a bagel box from Bruegger's Bagels, I get a few cinnamon sugar coated ones for the sweet-toothed people in my office. They look fine at first and are great for the first hour or so, and then they start to look damp... and then essentially become completely wet on the outside. To the point where I take it out of the bag and it drips.

These bagels aren't usually warm or heated up when I get them -- they're room temperature. After people take their fill, I put them in into these plastic "freezer" bags that Brueggers give out for storing bagels. They're plastic and see-through and look like the bags that store bought bagels come in. I just leave them on the table and tied off.

I thought that it might could be condensation, but it seems to only happen with the cinnamon sugar bagels (I put the types in different bags). I thought maybe the sugar was melting, but our office isn't warm, it's actually abnormally cold.

Do you know what could be causing this/what the liquid is? I mean, it looks/tastes fine...but it's really odd to eat a dripping wet bagel.

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    This also happens to their salt bagels, to a lesser extent; it can get pretty bad on very humid days!
    – Erica
    Commented Apr 3, 2019 at 17:32

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Sugar is hydrophilic (literally, 'water loving').

This is useful in some baked goods -- sugar will help to keep them moist, but in this case, it sounds like you're in a high-humidity area where it's pulling too much water out of the air.

My only suggestion would be to squeeze as much air out of the bags before sealing them, to avoid trapping moisture in there with them.

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    The bagel itself has water in it.
    – MaxW
    Commented Apr 3, 2019 at 15:45
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    I agree with the "water being pulled by the icing" part. However, if the area was humid enough for this to happen to the point where the bagel is described as "dripping", the OP would be accustomed to seeing this in all other kinds of baked goods and candy. Also, it only happens with this one flavor. My best guess is that the recipe contains something much more hygroscopic than sugar, maybe glycerine, but the ingredient list doesn't show anything special, possibly it is below some report limit.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Apr 3, 2019 at 17:57

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