Harvest King Flour Fuels a Baking Renaissance

26/05/06 Flour formulated for artisan baking now available to home bakers.

An artisan bread renaissance is emerging with an emphasis on quality ingredients, proper fermentation, hand shaping and craftsmanship. And now, artisan breads aren’t achievable just by professional bakers. They can be created at home as Gold Medal brings Harvest King flour, specially developed for the artisan bread industry, to consumers in September 2006.

“With Harvest King, we created domestic flour that is perfectly suited to the discerning style and methods of artisan baking,” said Tim Bennett, Gold Medal marketing manager. “We are excited to offer Harvest King to the growing number of home bakers who want to participate in this rich tradition and create perfect, beautiful loaves of bread every time they bake.”

Harvest King will now be available to home bakers. Previously available only to professional artisan bakers, Harvest King is specially formulated to produce wholesome, full-flavored artisan breads. Harvest King flour is milled from 100 percent select hard winter wheat. In addition to imparting a golden crust, winter wheat provides the perfect balance of strength and tolerance required for artisan baking’s long, slow fermentation process. Harvest King wheat is specially milled to the ideal ash and protein level, which provides optimum baking characteristics and delivers the desired crumb structure and crust texture. And Harvest King flour is unbleached and unbromated, making it ideal for the unique techniques that are the key to artisan baking.

Gold Medal set out to create a flour that would enable American bakers to create European style artisan breads with a domestic flour. To achieve this, the Gold Medal team visited the National Baking Center to better understand the process of artisan baking and the needs of artisan bakers. Because artisan breads are hand-formed and slow-fermented, they require a flour with unique characteristics and specifications. After learning from master artisan bakers and conducting numerous tests, Gold Medal found that its Harvest King flour, available to professional bakers on the West Coast for many years, offered the perfect characteristics for artisan baking.

As a result, Harvest King flour became Gold Medal’s professional artisan baking brand. After decades of use by professional bakers, Harvest King flour will now become part of the home baker’s pantry, delivering the consistency of professional baking in every loaf.