May Cookery Classes & Experiences

If you’ve ever oohed and aahed over beautifully crafted cakes and wondered how professional bakers achieve that perfect balance of appearance, texture and flavour, this is the class for you.

Former tutor at Slattery School of Excellence, Victoria has joined the Food Sorcery team to share her expertise through a range of inspiring baking classes. From perfect pastry and patisserie to chocolate tempering and cake decorating, Victoria will help you develop the skills and confidence to create truly professional results at home.

You Will Learn

• The professional techniques and small details that make all the difference when baking cakes
• How to bake three classic cake styles
• The art of creating and balancing cake flavours
• How to slice and layer large cakes with precision
• How to pipe cream as a filling to give structure and stability to layered cakes

You Will Make and Take Home

• Lemon Drizzle – Moist & tangy cake dotted with lemon zest and drizzled with a tart-and-sweet lemony glaze
• Black Forex Gateaux – Moist chocolate sponge layers, soaked with kirsch, whipped cream and finished with dark chocolate curls
• Genoise Sponge – Light airy cake – leavened with egg /sugar and filled with fresh Chantilly cream and rich fruit jam.

Save the planet! – bring three large re-useable cake boxes or containers and a bag to transport your bakes home. We have disposable ones if you forget.

What’s Included:

• Tea/Coffee or soft drinks on arrival, all ingredients you need. You will sit down to a light lunch during the class and will take away your creations.
• Bring your own containers to transport your creations home, we have simple ones if you forget.
• Copies of the recipes will also be emailed to you after the class.
• The added bonus is the washing up is all done for you!

Cooking Together Experiences are as much about relaxing and sharing good food as they are about learning to cook—the perfect blend of a meal out and hands-on cookery class—what we call sociable foodie fun.

Each ticket is for two people, and you’ll cook together, sharing ingredients and equipment. If you have different dietary requirements, we’ll adapt the ingredients to suit you both—just let us know in the booking notes.

Suitable for all cooking abilities, our chef demonstrates and you recreate both starter and main with plenty of time to enjoy eating between courses. Our team serves dessert while you relax and chat in our sociable dining area.

Designed for all cooking abilities, you’ll leave with the confidence to recreate the meal at home – a new go-to favourite.

Vietnamese cooking is fresh, fragrant and full of flavour, shaped by regional traditions and influences from both China and France. Aromatic herbs, spices, crisp vegetables and carefully balanced sauces create dishes that feel vibrant and satisfying without being heavy.

Suitable for all cooking abilities, the class combines chef demonstrations with plenty of hands-on cooking. You’ll explore the ingredients and techniques that make Vietnamese food distinctive, learning how to balance sweet, sour, salty and savoury flavours with confidence.

The class includes time to sit down and enjoy the meal with the other guests in our dining area. You’ll also have plenty to take home and the confidence to recreate Vietnamese dishes in your own kitchen.

Designed for enthusiastic home bakers looking to level up their skills, as well as professionals wanting to refine their technique, this hands-on workshop will teach you how to create beautifully decorated cupcakes and transform them into stunning edible bouquets.

Victoria will guide you through everything you need to know to make the perfect cupcakes, with recipes provided for you to take home and enjoy again and again. You’ll then learn a range of versatile piping techniques, from creating delicate petals to beautifully defined flowers, before putting your new skills into practice during plenty of decorating time.

Across the session, you’ll decorate 14 cupcakes and arrange them into two spectacular cupcake bouquets. You’ll also learn how to construct and gift-wrap your bouquets, making them the perfect stylish and thoughtful edible gift.

Flowers you’ll create

• Rose
• Hydrangea
• Sunflower
• Chrysanthemum
• Daisy

At the end of the workshop, you’ll take home two beautifully finished large cupcake bouquets – Please bring a sturdy bag or box to safely transport your creations home.

What’s included:

• Tea, coffee and refreshments throughout the day
• All ingredients, equipment and gift-wrap
• Your decorated cupcakes to take home (please bring suitable containers)
• Full workshop notes emailed after the class
• Best of all, we take care of the washing up!

Join baker Victoria Richardson for a hands-on introduction to the joys of bread making. You’ll explore a variety of traditional and creative techniques, learning how to work with dough to achieve delicious results every time.

Making bread is both a treat and a wonderfully satisfying experience. From the feel of the dough in your hands to the irresistible aroma of freshly baked bread, you’ll discover the pleasure of creating bread from scratch — while developing skills you can easily transfer to a wide range of recipes.

• Plaited Loaf – Learn how to shape an enriched bread dough into an impressive six-strand plaited loaf, often known as Challah.
• Knotted Loaves – Discover how to shape a regular dough into individual knots and decorative forms, perfect for sharing or serving alongside a meal.
• Flavoured Loaf – Learn how to transform a basic bread dough by adding your choice of delicious flavours, such as olives, onions or caraway seeds, and experiment with different shapes and finishes.
• Soda Bread – Make this simple, yeast-free bread using baking soda and buttermilk as the raising agents. Quick to prepare and wonderfully rustic, it’s a great addition to your bread-making repertoire.
• Focaccia – Create a classic Italian-style focaccia, generously topped with fragrant rosemary, olive oil and sea salt. Learn the techniques that give focaccia its characteristic texture and flavour.

By the end of the session, you’ll have a collection of delicious breads to enjoy, along with the confidence and skills to continue experimenting with different doughs, flavours and techniques at home.

Bring large containers/bag to take your bread home.

What’s Included:

• Tea/Coffee or soft drinks on arrival, all ingredients you need. You will sit down to a light lunch during the class and will take away your creations.
• Bring your own containers to transport your creations home, we have simple ones if you forget.
• Copies of the recipes will also be emailed to you after the class.
• The added bonus is the washing up is all done for you!

Skill Level: All Abilities

Japanese food has become a firm favourite in the UK, with sushi, gyoza and ramen among its best-known dishes. This class brings all three together, giving you the skills to recreate them in your own kitchen.

You’ll learn to prepare makizushi—rice and fillings wrapped in nori—and uramaki, where the rice sits on the outside, as in a California roll. You’ll also work with fresh fish to prepare sashimi, make yaki-gyoza and explore the flavours and ingredients that bring a bowl of ramen together.

Suitable for all cooking abilities, the class combines chef demonstrations with plenty of hands-on cooking. This extended class includes time to sit down and enjoy the dishes in our dining area. You’ll also have plenty to take home and the confidence to make them again.

Designed for home baristas and coffee enthusiasts who want to make better espresso and milk-based drinks in their own kitchen. No previous experience is needed, and Barista Gav will answer your questions about traditional home-brewing equipment and methods. You’ll also use our commercial espresso machine to learn milk texturing and the basics of latte art.

You’ll explore how coffee origin, processing, water quality and brewing method affect the flavour in your cup. We’ll then move on to espresso, learning how to adjust and calibrate the grinder before covering milk texturing and the foundations of latte art.

Skills you’ll learn:

• How to taste and compare speciality coffees
• How to improve the espresso you make at home
• Different ways to brew coffee at home, including V60, Clever Dripper and AeroPress
• How to adjust your grinder and achieve a balanced extraction
• Milk texturing and the fundamentals of latte art

Throughout the session, you’ll taste a selection of interesting coffees from around the world and leave with practical knowledge you can put to use at home.

What’s included:

Lots of coffee and biscuits!

Skill Level: All Abilities

Cooking Together Experiences are as much about relaxing and sharing good food as they are about learning to cook—the perfect blend of a meal out and hands-on cookery class—what we call sociable foodie fun.

Each ticket is for two people, and you’ll cook together, sharing ingredients and equipment. If you have different dietary requirements, we’ll adapt the ingredients to suit you both—just let us know in the booking notes.

Suitable for all cooking abilities, our chef demonstrates and you recreate both starter and main with plenty of time to enjoy eating between courses. Our team serves dessert while you relax and chat in our sociable dining area.

Designed for all cooking abilities, you’ll leave with the confidence to recreate the meal at home – a new go-to favourite.