With former students including the Duchess of Cambridge, Leiths is a cookery school with serious pedigree - and, as I found out, its puddings are fit for a queen
Leiths School of Food and Wine is something of an institution in the world of cooking. Founded in 1975 by restaurateur and writer Prue Leith, the smart four-floor cookery school in west London is famed as much for its rigorous technical approach as it is for its use of high-quality, seasonal ingredients.
As well as running week-long and weekend courses, the school offers a range of Saturday classes, including 'Summer Puddings', which I attended. We started with tea, coffee and croissants before heading to the professional-style kitchen, with its impressive KitchenAid mixers and ProWare copper pans.
We aproned-up and met our teacher, Annie Evans. If you have a sweet tooth and want to tackle the trickier pudding elements - things like meringues and pastry - this course is ideal. We started off by gathering around Annie as she demonstrated how to the make the first pudding of the day: sparkling Champagne and strawberry jellies with elderflower cream.
As well as running through the method, Annie also suggested ways that we could adapt recipes at home. For instance, she suggested swapping the gelatine for agar if cooking for vegetarians and pointed out other seasonal fruits that would work well. Ever the nosy sort, I particularly enjoyed learning about how Leiths sources ingredients; for instance, we used the most delicious Alpine strawberries brought over from France.
After Annie's demonstration, we returned to our workstations to try the recipe ourselves. If you're feeling a bit lazy on a Saturday, you'll be very pleased to know that the ingredients are waiting for you, having been weighed out by the kitchen team. We made three puddings in total, including pastry tarts with chocolate ganache and cherries, and rose petal and raspberry meringues. The pattern was the same throughout we'd watch Annie and then have a go ourselves, which worked well and gave us a chance to ask any questions before we made a mistake!
For someone who is a bit terrified of pastry, it was good to finally tackle pâte sucrée under an expert eye. Annie was on hand to offer tips and help when cracks started to appear in my neatly rolled dough! And somehow I managed to make a couple of starts that actually resembled tarts!
The four-and-a-half hour class was hands-on, fast paced and involved quite a bit of multi-tasking. I found it all exciting and enlightening, but if you're looking for a gentle morning, you might be in for a shock. We finished cooking about an hour before the end and sat around our work tables for a well-deserved slap-up lunch of cheese, meats and salad with a glass or two of wine. At the end, we packed up our puddings into plastic boxes and bags - you are given a Leiths tote bag to transport the fruits of your labour home. My housemates were certainly pleased!
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Leiths School of Food and Wine is something of an institution in the world of cooking. Founded in 1975 by restaurateur and writer Prue Leith, the smart four-floor cookery school in west London is famed as much for its rigorous technical approach as it is for its use of high-quality, seasonal ingredients.
As well as running week-long and weekend courses, the school offers a range of Saturday classes, including 'Summer Puddings', which I attended. We started with tea, coffee and croissants before heading to the professional-style kitchen, with its impressive KitchenAid mixers and ProWare copper pans.
As well as running through the method, Annie also suggested ways that we could adapt recipes at home. For instance, she suggested swapping the gelatine for agar if cooking for vegetarians and pointed out other seasonal fruits that would work well. Ever the nosy sort, I particularly enjoyed learning about how Leiths sources ingredients; for instance, we used the most delicious Alpine strawberries brought over from France.
The four-and-a-half hour class was hands-on, fast paced and involved quite a bit of multi-tasking. I found it all exciting and enlightening, but if you're looking for a gentle morning, you might be in for a shock. We finished cooking about an hour before the end and sat around our work tables for a well-deserved slap-up lunch of cheese, meats and salad with a glass or two of wine. At the end, we packed up our puddings into plastic boxes and bags - you are given a Leiths tote bag to transport the fruits of your labour home. My housemates were certainly pleased!
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