King Arthur Flour: Multi-Seed Crackerbread

I seriously can't tell you enough about my trip to King Arthur Flour Company this past weekend!  In addition to learning about the company, we had the opportunity to take a baking class there as well.  One of the recipes we tried out was for a super easy pizza dough.  If that wasn't easy enough, we moved down the the baking agenda to multi-seed crackerbread.

To start, our instructor Susan talked to us about whole wheat flour.  She wanted us to understand the difference between whole wheat and all-purpose flour.

For instance, whole wheat flour has bran, which absorbs more moisture than all-purpose flour.  This can obviously make a huge difference in your baking!  After Susan taught us about the science behind whole wheat flour, she got to work and demonstrated making the dough for the crackerbread.

When she was done, we got back to our stations and tried it out on our own.  For this recipe, Susan asked that we pair up and my partner was the lovely Bridget from Yogurt and Berries.  I've only met Bridget once before at the Eggland's Best dinner, so it was great to get to know her even better on Saturday!

We got to work and combined all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, pumpernickel flour, cornmeal, salt water and olive oil.  We mixed the dough until it was stiff but not crumbly.  Our dough ended up being a little wet so we added more all-purpose flour to it as we kneaded it using the same three steps from the pizza dough.  This time, we didn't knead it as long - just enough to make sure the dough was firm and together.

Susan demonstrated how to divide the dough into eight pieces and then how to roll them out.

First you scattered some seeds, herbs pepper and/or salt out onto the work surface.  We had fresh herbs on hand from King Arthur Flour's garden.

But I gravitated towards my favorite herb mixture - Herbs de Provence.

Working one piece at a time, you rolled the dough out on top of the seeds.  If the dough was sticky, gently scrape it off the table, flip it over and keep rolling.

We picked up a rolling pin and got back to our stations to try it out ourselves.

Everyone was hard at work.  It is fun taking a class with food bloggers as people alternate between baking and taking photos.

Katie and Jen are both hard at work!

Everyone was really proud of their cracker breads since they all came out so pretty yet different!

Alicia and Megan pose with their creations.

And truth be told, I was pretty proud of mine too.

We placed our crackerbreads on a parchment-lined tray and headed to the oven in the bakery.

This was one heck of an oven and Susan demonstrated how you loaded it up.

Even Bridget got to take a turn.

Bridget is all smiles as she works the oven.

In a normal oven, this would take 7-10 minutes at 450 degrees.  Make sure you warm up the oven for awhile and try not to open the oven door too much to let the heat escape!

Before

After

The end result? My crackerbread was perfectly crispy and filled with herb flavors.  This is something I definitely want to make for wine and cheese nights since it is so simple but has a lot of wow factor.

I've been having a lot of fun writing about my class at King Arthur Flour.

Have you taken any cooking/baking classes?  What did you learn?