King Arthur Flour Demonstration

Yesterday I mentioned in a quick post that I would be attending a King Arthur Flour demonstration at my local Botanical Garden. Even though I’m wishy-washy about attending events like that, I am so glad I went. The topic was sweet yeasted breads, which is something I really needed pointers about.

The expert who taught the class is a former pastry chef from the Ritz-Carlton who now works at King Arthur. He did a really excellent job of explaining why things worked the way they do. Here are some interesting tidbits I learned during the presentation:

• Rapid-Rise yeast, as opposed to just instant dry yeast, is only good for making breads that need only one good rise. Beyond that, you need to stay away from Rapid-Rise. I didn’t know this, and I’ve been using rapid-rise for everything.
• You need to “fluff up” a bag of flour before you scoop and level. Also, dipping and leveling results in a total of an excess of 2 to 3 ounces of flour because flour compacts! Crazy! I’ve been using too much!
• You can measure the temperature of water that is supposed to be “lukewarm” by sticking your finger in it. If you can hold your finger in for 10 seconds, it’s warm enough for the yeast.
• King Arthur flour has a baking hotline that you can call when you have a baking dilemma or crisis at home… very cool!
• and more…

And there were also giveaways! I didn’t win anything, but my friend Laura won a bag of bread flour and said I could have it since she never used that type. Everyone also got $10/20 gift cards, red star yeast samples, recipe books, catalogs, hershey’s coupons, and yummy cabot cheese samples.

I’m really glad I got a chance to go! You might be seeing the yeasted braided cheese filled coffee cake that was made in the demonstration on my blog soon

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