blog & bake at king arthur flour

I spent three days this week elbows deep in flour, butter and sugar — as one of just 12 participants in King Arthur Flour's second annual Blog & Bake retreat. Soo... yeah. How lucky was I?!

It was an incredible experience, and that really is putting it lightly. I'm still trying to process all that I learned! The classes were totally hands-on, taught by wonderful, experienced and funny instructors who made me feel confident tackling things I never would have tried on my own. Over the three days, we made bread, scones, pop tarts, empanadas, palmiers and puff-pastry tarts. Heck, we even participated in the filming of a TV cooking show. I collapsed into bed each night, only to dream of ovens and sugar.

I have a handful of new, excellent recipes to share, but first ... how about a look around King Arthur Flour? 

When the King invites you to cook for him, well, there is no saying no.

A view of King Arthur Flour's brand-new facilities, opened just a month ago. As we were there, the older facilities were being demolished!

Now, here's where it gets good: the baking education classrooms. This is where all of our workshops took place. Sure beats my tiny apartment kitchen!

photo courtesy of King Arthur Flour

And this is what our first cooking class on recipe writing looked like. Intense, no? That's a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

photo courtesy of King Arthur Flour

Here's our bread baking class.

And ... here's what it looks like when you have a classroom full of food bloggers. Lots of cameras!

That's me photographing my nectarine tart above. As always, I weirdly keep my pinkies out when shooting :)

photos courtesy of King Arthur Flour

This would be the King Arthur Flour store, aka heaven.

And these are KAF's professional bakers. I think they've got it made.

More to come... soon!