Well folks, we are nearing the end of our fourth week of England’s third national lockdown and, coincidentally, the end of our ropes too. Although I’m sure we’ve all acclimatized to staying in after extensive practice across a number of months, it can still be a challenge trying to find things to occupy ourselves with apart from Netflix and sleeping.
Fortunately for me, I was offered a chance to attend a free online cooking class with Jayne McGhee of Grow Cook Enjoy. In 2014, Grow Cook Enjoy was founded by McGhee and runs numerous cooking classes for preschool aged children to adults. Having worked as a professional chef for nearly 30 years, including in Michelin starred restaurants, McGhee has a wealth of knowledge which she has imparted over the course of 13 years of teaching.
I had a wide array of recipes and classes to choose from for everything from quesadillas to Singapore noodles. Considering I have a bit of a sweet tooth, I went for the Tuesday evening cake baking class where we endeavoured to bake both sponge cakes and rock cakes. Usually these classes would be conducted at schools or other appropriate venues but, refusing to let Covid restrictions faze her, McGhee translated the classes virtually. “Moving classes online has lots of benefits, it is much more cost effective and sustainable” said McGhee of the transition, “Children can learn to cook in their own environment with their own equipment.”
I definitely felt more at ease navigating my kitchen and using appliances I’m familiar with. Being able to duck out of the camera’s view to gorge myself on walnuts and sultanas was an added bonus. I attended the class with only two other clients which meant that we were all adequately supervised and able to ask for help when needed. I had never made rock cakes before so McGhee encouraging us to hold up our bowls to the camera periodically to check our progress and offering up praise was much appreciated. We went through the recipe step by step and McGhee was endlessly patient when it came to waiting for everyone to measure out their ingredients and wash their utensils as we went along. I especially liked how the recipes could easily be adapted to be vegan or just modified to your taste. For instance, in my class, everyone decided to make different flavoured sponges such as lemon and poppyseed and chocolate, with McGhee giving each person instructions for their specific bakes.
Aside from the class running smoothly on a technical level, the atmosphere of the class itself was jovial as we kept up easy conversations whilst whisking eggs and pouring batter. McGhee was affable and decidedly less intimidating than her impressive CV would suggest which made the prospect of tackling a foreign recipe seem like a piece of cake (pun intended). It was also quite heartwarming watching the parents on the Zoom call assist their children with the baking, something McGhee encourages and believes “is great for building family relationships.”
The next thing I knew, an hour had flown by and I had successfully baked a batch of coffee and walnut cupcakes as well as some rock cakes. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience (it came second only to actually eating my creations) and would definitely recommend the classes to anyone who is looking to cultivate some culinary skills or simply stay entertained in lockdown.
