King Arthur Flour Grand Opening Celebration!

As soon as I saw that King Arthur Flour was having a Grand Opening Celebration for their newly renovated Store & Baking Education Center, I knew I had to plan for the road trip.  I got to see most of it at the Blog & Bake, but the cafe wasn't done then.  It is so fabulous!

I loaded the kids up into the car early in the morning and arrived just after 10 AM today (Saturday), and we stayed until almost 4 PM.  I wanted to leave earlier, but they both said "Mom, we drove 2 hours to get here, we really should stay until we've done everything!"  I love these kids.

There were awesome door prizes.  We got a whole slew of awesome swag.  I have some multiples, because they gave some to the kids, too.

With a screen!

We went to a great demonstration featuring King Arthur Flour bakers PJ Hamel & Brinna Sands.  They made Almond Puff Loaf.  And we got to taste it.  Astounding.  

The kids adored it.  They are basically a pie crust, topped with pate a choux, topped with jelly and almonds.  I mean, really.  Delish.  Make this.

Self decorated cookies!

Next, we wandered around the Baker's Store for a bit.  We watched the bakers making bread and pain au chocolat.  We had samples.  So many samples.  

We ate a wonderful lunch (and The Boy was astounded that I didn't pack lunch.  This was a special occasion).

We had more samples.

Finally, we attended another demo by Dede Wilson, on her Cake Balls.  She has a whole cookbook on cake balls from scratch - scratch cake, scratch binders (she used ganache!!).  I kind of want it.

She showed us her techniques for crumbling the cake...

adding the binder .....

rolling the balls ....

dipping the balls .....

and decorating the balls.

I want to make myself some of these parchment cones - instead of using disposable pastry bags.  Nice.

And I came home with all sorts of goodies to play with!  I bought some sticky bun sugar (which I plan on using in granola bars) and some more self-rising flour to play with, too!

Oh yeah, there was face painting, too!

Overall, I am so thrilled to have made the trip, and the kids were begging to go back next weekend for a class at the Baking Education Center.  It's not going to happen, but I am happy that they enjoyed it as much as I did.