My Trip to King Arthur Flour

So even just writing the title to this post makes me smile from ear to ear!

King Arthur Flour Baking School

I got to go to the one, the only KING ARTHUR FLOUR (KAF) in Norwich, Vermont and it was awesome.  Let me tell you all about it. :-)

This little adventure started back in December when I got a birthday card with instructions on the outside to not open until my husband got home.  Do you know how hard that is?  To check the mail at 3pm and have to wait until 7pm to open it knowing at this point that it had to be something good!  Ack, I was dying with anticipation.  Well, my most awesome friend MJ who lives in the Boston area had conspired with my husband to put together the most incredible birthday surprise ever -- a girl's weekend away to King Arthur Flour.  Many thanks to her, her husband and, of course, my husband for making me feel so special.

I flew to Boston by myself, with just a carry-on (I felt like I was missing something or lots of somethings!) on a Friday and we drove up to Vermont the next day.  After a delicious lunch in the KAF Cafe, MJ and I proceeded to class -- Rolls: Sweet and Savory.  On the menu were sweet orange rolls and savory focaccia rolls.  Our instructor, Becca, had been working at KAF for 10 years, starting in the bakery on the 3am shift and then moving over to the Baking School.  She knew her way around the kitchen and yeast dough.

Mixing dough by hand, Finished sweet orange rolls, Focaccia squares ready to bake

The class format was pretty relaxed.  Becca took us through a recipe at her work station and then we each returned to our work stations to make our own batch.  Ingredients and tools were all provided at the table so there was no need to look around for anything.  Dishes were picked up when we finished and taken away to be washed.  We made the sweet orange rolls dough, made the savory focaccia roll dough, took a coffee break and then came back to finish up our creations.  The orange roll dough got rolled into a rectangle and filled with a butter and orange zest/oil filling and rolled up like a cinnamon roll while the focaccia was ever so gently patted out and cut into squares so as to preserve the air pockets.  To speed the process along, the dough was placed in a giant proofing box and then later baked in a giant walk-in oven (it is a bakery after all).  The best part -- every participant got to take home her cooking untouched as we sampled the instructor's finished products.  My family was happy to see me when I flew home and even happier to eat my creations!

Even though I've been making yeast dough for a couple of years now (my first attempt is now known as the hockey puck incident of 2007) I learned quite a bit.  I have always used my KitchenAid stand mixer with dough hook to make my dough but it was surprisingly easy to make the dough by hand.  Multiple times throughout the dough making process, if I had been at home, I would have added more flour as the dough seemed too sticky.  Luckily, our instructor coached me not to and just like magic with some gentle kneading and a light flour dusting of the work surface the dough became smooth and elastic.  Had I been using the stand mixer or added more flour it could have become overworked or too heavy which would have results in a dense final product.  There was also a very informative discussion about using the water temperature to help control the speed of the dough rising through the yeast activation.  If you need the dough to take longer to rise (errands to run or other things to do) use cooler water.  Makes perfect sense but not something I had considered previously.

Overall it was a great weekend with a great friend.  If you happen to be in the Northeast, try and check out King Arthur Flour, maybe to take a baking class, maybe to try one of their raspberry danishes.  You won't be disappointed either way.  And since you're in Vermont and it's a small state, make sure to stop by some other fun little tourist spots like Ben & Jerry's, Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Maple Grove Farms, Dartmouth College (technically in New Hampshire), and Simon Pearce glass

King Arthur Flour Baking School