A BAKING CLASS FIT FOR A KING..........

And that King would be "King Arthur Flour"......the Famous flour company based in Vermont...

In the Atlanta area this week........if there's some sort of free class in town

You can always find me and neighbor Necie the first to sign up....They brought their traveling baking show to the Marietta County Club for two shows....

We opted for the noon class on "yeast sweet breads"....

The night time class was all about pies and tarts......

These two lovely bakers greeted us at the door with the recipe book

and our door prize coupon.......And alot of door prizes were about to be given out....

A bit blurry as we were sitting about a dozen rows back......but check out all that
flour and boxes of specialty mixes.....a few really great aprons.....some baking tools and one really great cookbook.....And who was the first person to score a door prize.....
No....not me.....neighbor Necie.....


with an overhead screen for good viewing the instructor gave us a full two hours of
wonderful recipes and baking tips using one basic sweet dough....

Here she is making a cherry cheese coffee cake.....

with the same batch of dough she also made a almond ring.....and every one's favorite

Sticky Buns.....

Here are a few simple but very helpful tips she gave us....

1.) if the recipe calls for unsalted butter and you only have salted in the house.....a stick of salted butter contains 1/4 teaspoon of salt....so just subtract that 1/4 teaspoon from the salt the recipe calls for.....

2.) 1 average size lemon yields 1 Tablespoon of zest.....

3.) You can use a cheap plastic shower cap (think the free ones from hotels and motels)

to cover your bowl when bread is rising.....

4.) to test bread to see if it's ready to come out of the oven......Don't tap it to hear if it's hollow....

use an instant read thermometer.......190 degrees....it's done!

5.) Instead of wasting a whole egg for just a bit of an egg wash....keep in the fridge a small container of "Egg Beaters"......I never knew that this is egg white with coloring.....

the egg white gives the bread a good shine and Egg Beaters will stay good in the fridge for

a few weeks.....

and finally.....

6.) When making those sticky buns.....so that they don't loose their round shape when cutting into individual rolls....use "Dental Floss" to cut the un-baked dough.....

Just place the floss under the roll of dough.....bring it around to the top and cross the floss over...

then pull.....it cuts it perfect every time.....

Don't these look fabulous.....and this is the Uncooked version!

Here is the Almond Coffee Cake.....the dough was rolled "jelly roll fashion"

Then formed into a circle....Snipped about 3/4 of the way towards the center of the ring....

Then twisted on it's side to appear that each piece is separate.....

This is Susan Reid....a graduate of the CIA and one great baking instructor....

It was fun.....it was very informative and she made you want to go straight home

and start baking......

She also writes a publication for King Arthur called

"The Baking Sheet"...

We weren't all lucky to go home with a door prize but what a nice surprise for

King Arthur Flour

To give to all the folks in attendance not only a little sampling of recipes.....

Some samples from their Baking Partners.....

Red Star Yeast and Cabot Cheese.......my favorite cheese of all time....If you

have never tried their

Seriously Sharp Cheddar look for it the next time your shopping.....

It makes the best Mac and Cheese.....

We also got a bench scraper.....and the best thing....

A $10.00 gift card to use online or in their catalog....

If you have never checked out their website visit.....

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/

You can also go there and sign up to have their catalogs sent.....

They come about every 6 weeks......and right now they are having a great sale....

Free Shipping on their "secret ingredients"....

I prefer getting the catalog because it's just fun to sit at night and thumb through to see

all the goodies they offer.....and they have everything you could possibly want or need...

And check out their "Traveling Class" schedule online as they have these

classes all over the country....

On our way out......we stopped to take this picture of the

Marietta County Club....

We wanted to have lunch as the smells coming from the dining room were smelling

pretty good....

But it was just open for members.....

So.....we took all our freebies.....including Necie's bag of

Whole Wheat flour.....

and off we went to the Olive Garden......

LET THE BAKING BEGIN!!!!