King Arthur Makes a Lot More Than Just Flour

I love to bake. And my love of baking has been passed on to my daughter. At 14, she’s just learning how to bake and still feels comfortable using mixes for things other than her specialty, oatmeal raisin cookies (YUMMMM). Because we’re trying to be healthier and not eat refined and processed foodstuffs, I started looking at mixes in Whole Foods and Trader Joes. Unfortunately, not much actually tasted good, and some of the items we tried were a real washout.

I happen to get the King Arthur catalog monthly because I bake a lot of breads, and they carry flours that you can’t get at a regular grocery store. So last month I was drooling through my catalog, reading the recipes and looking at all the gorgeous photos of baked goods and more baked goods, and I came to the page with the whole grain mixes. Voila! Just what I was looking for.

I have to admit, I went a teeny tiny bit overboard. Um, like, I ordered one of pretty much everything you could order. It was a tad bit excessive, but I like to be thorough when I try out new products. I mean, I was planning to review the different muffins and scones, right? So I got 6 muffin mixes, 4 pancake mixes, 3 scone mixes, and then two regular scone mixes.

So far, we’ve made most of the scones, a couple of the pancakes, and… oh, this is embarassing… all of the muffins. Big gigantic muffins. Fluffy, light, sweet, whole grain muffin goodness. Muffins that my kids take to school in the morning. Muffins that we actually fight over. Lets see, there are 3 of us in the family, we make 6 muffins, you would think that’s two each, right? Um… try living with a teenage boy and see how fair life is when food is concerned. If he could, he’d eat them all.

The cranberry orange and blueberry sourcream scones mixes, which are not whole grain, are so light and airy that you would swear they came right out of a good bakery. You just need a pastry cutter, and regular kitchen tools, and you’re all set. We didn’t even use a scone pan, although I have one. We just dropped the scones onto a sheet of parchment on a heavy baking sheet. They bake quickly and they are delicious both hot out of the oven, and cooled off.

The whole grain scone mix we liked the best was the praline pumpkin. That was a hearty scone with a lot of flavor, not overly sweet but really tasty in the cold morning air. With a nice cup of coffee, that scone made you all warm and comfy inside.

The pancake mix we liked the best was the sourdough flapjacks. They tasted just like the kind of pancakes you get at a good pancake house (and I’m not talking about the rooty tooty pancakes at IHOP), substantial with a nice sourdough bite.

Muffins… Well, they are all fabulous. All of them. My daughter was nuts for the blueberry, I loved the cranberry orange, and my son went wild for the apple cinnamon. I can’t even begin to describe the feeding frenzy that went on at our house when a fresh batch of muffins popped out of the oven.

If you don’t get the catalog, you can shop online at the King Arthur online catalog. But beware. This is a very expensive habit. If you’re like me, you can’t just get one or two things. When a huge carton appears on your front porch from Vermont, don’t blame me. I’ve done it so many times that the company ought to name a wing after me. I absolutely adore every product they make. And so will you.