This week is the 1 year anniversary of my friend Hillary (of cookie science-ing fame) talking me into starting this blog. To help us (that’s me and you) celebrate, King Arthur Flour is going to give one of you a copy of their Original King Arthur Flour Cookbook, which I love and have shared several recipes from. (Keep reading all the way down for giveaway details.)
At the start of the month my mother and I went to Vermont to King Arthur’s shop in Vermont. I’d been emailing with one of their employees, Allison, about arranging this giveaway, and she met us to take us on a tour.
We started off at the store, which had been significantly expanded since I was there last year. You can now see right into the baking areas, which is pretty cool.
The new space has the full rainbow of sugar, every possible extract and flavoring, an impressive variety of chocolate chips and chunks, and then every weird cooking nick-nack you could ever want, up to and including a stamp to put lines on a kaiser roll.
We bought some pans, some chocolate, some cheese powder I’m super excited about, and a few other odds and ends, and were done with the store (for then).
A mile down the road, we went to their Bakers’ Catalogue Fulfillment Center, where the non-shop stuff happens.
Allison and I — I buy only the most ridiculous of shirts at craft fairs.
Our first stop there was the test kitchen! They use all tools that people probably have at home, they just have lots of them, much better organized than in most homes. Most importantly, we got a sample of something they had been testing the day before, chocolate graham cracker ice cream sandwiches with Biscoff ice cream.
Then we were down the hall to their contact center, where they have master bakers you can call or email if you’re having trouble with a recipe or something came out wrong and you want some tips to make it better next time. They also answer calls about questions or problems with products. They’ve got one of everything that they sell on their wall so that if you call about a specific product, they can be looking at the same thing when they answer your questions about it. Good planning!
We went down to the shipping area, where all the online and catalogue orders are picked, packed, and shipped. They’re apparently pretty environmentally friendly, and recycle a lot of their shipping materials, which made my mom happy. Behind that was the area where their (tons of) mixes are put together and packed.
After that we talked a bit about what it means to be an employee owned company (which KAF is), and then the tour was done, but mom and I weren’t. We went back to the store and grabbed a few extra things, then stopped at their cafe and got a bunch more things. They have the best Napoleons, good breads (if you don’t want to make your own) and a bunch of other tasty stuff, so… if you’re ever near Vermont, head on over!
And that was it! I’d already liked King Arthur’s products, they seem to actually care about the environment (the renovation/addition to their store had that in mind), and they were nice to my mom and I, so I’m happy to recommend their products! Their website as well! The recipe section has tons of good ideas, and their blog shows how to make them with at least as many pictures as I ever take.
Alright! If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a chance at the giveaway! Just leave a comment with one kind of baked good you’d like to bake if you win the book, and make sure that either you leave your email address in the comment or are signed in to WordPress or some other account so I can contact you! Comment by next Sunday (May 20th) so I can announce the winner next Monday! Come back this Wednesday and the recipes will be back, including the best thing I’ve made yet from the King Arthur Flour website.
sparecake 
If I won the book, I would love to bake some cookies and share them with friends and family. I am looking for new recipes to try out on them!
I would love to bake more than my usually items such as Lemon Squares and banana cake with cream cheese frosting. I know that there are such wonderful treats in books and I would love to know how to make them.
I’d love to try some of their bread recipes!
I see a lot of King Arthur ads these days at work! and they always make me think of you.
Makes sense! I can only hope you start seeing lots of ads for that company with the crazy food pump systems soon too. Those things were ridic!
Yay your new job=)
So now that I care about my health I’d like to do something with their whole wheat flour – there are some scone recipes and whole-wheat devil’s food cake that I am eyeing!
Glad you enjoyed your visit! I had a feeling you may not have been done in the store… Glad you went back for a few more items and, most importantly, your treats! Thanks for visiting, and for sharing the experience with your readers. I’m still thinking about those ice cream sandwiches…
Whoops, hadn’t emailed you the link yet, but…here’s the post! =P
It ended up taking 2 trips to carry everything we bought from the car into the house!
I’m constantly looking for a pizza crust recipe that hits the sweet spot between taste & simplicity. Fleischmann’s yeast recipe? Dead easy but doesn’t even remind me of pizza crust. Buying rounds of dough from the pizza place? Dead easy & delicious but no control over ingredients. Jim Leahy’s no-knead pizza dough? Supposed to be delicious, but needs to be started a day ahead of time. You get the picture.
While you wait to see if you win, I’ve got one of their pizza dough recipes here: https://sparecake.com/2012/03/21/hearth-bread-pizza-dough/
Thanks! That looks like a good prospect. Also, that is some complex and nerdy pizza.
It occurs to me now that by the time we ate it, it was also well handled pizza. Gross.
edit because…”it applies to me”? that’s not even English
I’m a fanatic for cookies!!! So I will be baking cookies 😀
I love baking and would love to bake a carrot cake. I’m still on the lookout for the “perfect” carrot cake recipe. Maybe this cookbook has one!
I’m always looking for a great chocolate chip cookie recipe!
I’d love to try some of their bread recipes!
Barbara Palermo
Hi Barbara! You’ve won the King Arthur Flour Cookbook! WordPress isn’t showing me your email, so hopefully you get this reply and can email me your address for shipping at corig123@gmail.com. Please get back to me by Wednesday evening or I’ll have to pick someone else.
Congrats! =)
anything chocolate 🙂 brownies, chocolate cake thanks t
I’m really into rye lately. So I want to say some sort of baked good using that grain.
But realistically, I’ve gotta pay tribute to you, so if I won this book from you, I’d go with a layer cake with multiple kinds of filling and frosting. Or maybe a breakfast baked good with bacon AND cheese AND sausage AND maple syrup. I promise that it will be excessive and that it will not, under any circumstances, have nuts.
Where’s the ‘like’ button on this thing??
I love cookies with jam on/in them. Looking through the recipes on the website the lemon raspberry cookies look super delicious!
Just typed up a recipe for some shortbread-y thumbprints that were really good with raspberry jam. Will probably post it this week=)
Baker baker baking a cake