My first post in 2014 is a recipe by an American company, King Arthur Flour where I played a part in the correction of an ingredient in this recipe.  King Arthur Flour has, and will continue to be, one of my best baking sources. I absolutely love this company – buy AMERICAN!   First, a little history or you can go right to the recipe at the end of this post.

This is the oldest flour company in America’s history founded in 1790 in Boston, Massachusetts first under the name of Sands, Taylor & Wood Company.  The current name came from one of the owners who had just attended the musical King Arthur Flour and the Knights of the Round Table and so the name was changed.

As many know, King Arthur is one of the great legends from the magical moment when he releases the sword in the stone to the quest for the Holy Grail and tragedy of the Last Battle.  Then of course there is his Queen consort, Guinevere, who is said to have had an affair with King Arthur’s top knight, Sir Lancelot.  Do you remember the movie where Sean Connery played King Arthur and Richard Gere played Lancelot?  A favorite except for the ending!

King Arthur Flour  has come a long way from having a flagship product line of flour to being a retailer of many specialty flours, baking tools, ingredients and baked goods.  It is now based in Norwich, Vermont and has been employee-owned since 1996.  They have published 4 cookbooks, have a huge Baker’s Store which sends out a regular catalogue of lots of baking items,  The Baking Sheet with lots of good recipes and they also have a Baking Education Center established in 2012.

I have been a long-time customer of King Arthur Flour; I own a lot of their products/baking tools; I get the Baking Sheet and their catalogue plus frequent emails; and I own most of their cookbooks.  I have posted a number of their recipes and  products on my blog, always giving them  the highest reviews.    Unfortunately I have never visited their store in Vermont or had the pleasure of taking any of their baking classes.  Maybe some day…

Besides all of the above they have wonderful employee/customer relationships.   They are very passionate and committed to providing the best service possible to their customers.   You can send them emails, call them with baking questions or comment on their recipes.  This is what brought me to write about this fantastic company and the experience I had with this recipe, Bread Bowls for Two.

First, I did all of the right things; I buy all King Arthur products;  whether it is the flour, yeast or the specialty pans they sell; in this case mini brotform bowls; I also have a pizza stone and a digital thermometer so I knew when my water was lukewarm (90 to 100°F).  I am not a professional baker, but I do follow directions being a teacher/librarian.  I have done a fair amount of baking usually successfully, especially if it is a King Arthur Flour recipe.

There seemed to be a lot of water in the dough but I went ahead and made it.  When I am baking I always follow the recipe first until I feel it should be changed.  Then I have made so many King Arthur Flour recipes that I just assumed they knew what they were talking about.  No, I ended up having to add at least 1 extra cup of flour to make it workable.  As a result I had a lot more dough!  The dough rose quite a bit and was very sticky.  To make a long story short, it turned out rather good even though I had to make some adjustments.

Yeast is working in the starter … and lukewarm water!

The mini brotforms holding the dough that rose quite a bit!  It was very soft and sticky.

Once I turned them out of the brotforms the dough flattened just like a big fat pancake.  I reshaped and placed them on the heated pizza stone.

The finished product – very tasty but a little too big.  Three would have been better than two…

Used the bowls for my homemade Chili Michigan Style.  They held up well and were a big hit with my guest!

I first sent King Arthur Flour an email and then while waiting for a response (they promise to respond within 24 hours) I checked the recipe online and read a few comments by people who had the same problem.  I sent another detailed email including pictures describing the problem and that the recipe is obviously wrong and it should be changed.  I did not make a comment on their recipe – I went straight to them and “Irene” responded. After two nice emails her final words were they would put my comments in their customer observations.

I sent my two emails December 17, 2013 and as of December 24th they apologized for the error in the original recipe; this statement appears online with the recipe now.  You do not see that very often, if at all!  The water is now reduced from 1-1/2 cups to 1/2 cup – that is one whole cup of water they eliminated.  No wonder some of us had problems!

I was thrilled that maybe  my emails and pictures made them look closer at the recipe and then they responded so quickly.   This is the kind of service that is so appreciated and this new gesture just confirms what a great company King Arthur Flour is.  It also says that, people like myself, try to be honest and post a recipe to the best of their ability but there are always so many factors involved.  You learn to cook/bake with time and practice and the interest and  passion  you have to please yourself and especially others through the food you make.

The following is the corrected recipe: