Baking Short Courses and more

Basic Short Course Will Have You Baking Before Christmas

Everyone has to eat in order to survive; it is a natural law. Food is the fuel on which your body runs, so you are probably relatively confident making breakfast, lunch, dinner and other sundry eats in your home kitchen. However, when it comes to additional non-essential delights – cakes and baked goods, to be specific – the mere thought of trying to make them might terrify you. You have possibly made do with bought items, but often wished that you could make your own, especially at Christmas time.

Tasty as some bought goodies may be, they have become costly and really cannot compete with what you could produce in your own kitchen, providing you familiarise yourself with the basics, as taught at Prue Leith’s baking short courses. Even if you are a complete novice, Prue Leith’s short course will have you baking a variety of basic sweet treats with ease and confidence within just one morning. In fact, you will probably find that attending this course is all it takes to awaken a new talent or hobby, perhaps even setting you on the first step of a new career path.

Baking your Own is Better

Just imagine being able to bake your own cakes. You would no longer have to buy cupcakes for the children’s school fundraisers or be tempted to pretend that your guests’ desserts and teatime treats were produced by your own hands, when they were in fact store-bought. Once you understand what happens inside your oven and how the ingredients used in baking combine and work together, all this and much more is within your reach and capabilities.

Date-stamped vs. Fresh-from-the-oven

In South Africa, it is required by law that all fresh foodstuffs carry a date stamp, usually consisting of a “sell-by” or “best-before” date and sometimes the date on which the item was produced. Nevertheless, once produced, many such wares are yet to be packaged after being made, then transported to retail outlets, where they are put on display and offered for sale. Although still fresh, edible and enjoyable, they are not nearly as fresh and scrumptious as those that have just emerged from the oven.

Like most people, you undoubtedly get enormous personal satisfaction from a job well done. So too will be the case with baking. See how quickly your family gathers in the kitchen to “see what’s cooking” (or baking) when they catch a whiff of vanilla or chocolate wafting through the air. Home-baked is always freshest and best.

Sign up for October’s Short Baking Course

Prue Leith’s short baking courses have proved to be so popular that the academy that bears her name is now presenting them four times per year. You are still in time to sign up to for the last 2016 course, which takes place on 1 October. Within five hours, you will learn about baking’s basic science (what happens inside an oven) and how ingredients work together to produce a great result.

You will also make your own Genoise sponge chocolate Swiss Roll, strawberry and cream scones, carrot and olive oil cream cheese-frosted cupcakes, and butter cream-frosted Victoria sponge cake. Christmas is not far away and with Prue Leith’s basic baking short course under your belt, who knows what delights may grace your festive table?