We run seasonal baking classes at Get Cooking, Leeds, a beautiful cookery school, in Farsley, just off the Leeds ring road.

We’re really excited about our fantastic Apple Day Brewing & Baking class on Saturday 22nd October  a special one  class on offer this Autumn.  We love apples and so have teamed up with Learn to Brew Uk to dedicate a whole day class to making the best from the abundant local apple harvest this year

Steve from Learn to Brew UK will teach you in a hands on session how to make apple juice, cider and even cider vinegar from local apples You get to take home a demijohn of apple juice  we’ll have pressed plus all the know how and equipment to transform it into 5L of cider.

Apple & Almond Tart

Travelling Tea Lady, Becky will  show you how to make a fantastic apple tart. Then we’ll enjoy eating it as part of  a  gourmet lunch full of apple delights like cream cheese, apple & mint sandwiches, cheddar cheese with home made apple chutney and home made apple cordial.

 

 

After lunch we’ll all bake a gorgeous Italian Apple cake which you take home with you.  We’ll also have an apple cake and beer tasting afternoon tea before you leave.

If you love apples this is a great baking class for you.  The full day costs £130 which as well as the tuition and 2 meals includes all your brewing equipment ( demijohn, syphon and cider box) And of course your 5 litres of cider and a family sized cake, Book your place at :https://www.get-cooking.org.uk/co…/apple-day-brewing-baking/

We pick our apples locally if you have an apple tree and want to use your own apples do bring them along. Becky will tell you how to best store your apples to keep them for eating & baking right through the winter.

We have discount places available for 2 people baking together and returning customers so please email Becky at hello@travellingtealadies.co.uk if you want to take advantage of these

I ran 3 “Bake the Seasons” taster baking classes at the lovely Get cooking school in Farsley, Leeds and  discovered how much I love teaching other people how to bake. I wanted to focus  on sharing my love of using local, seasonal  produce. Also to inspire people to use what’s growing around them to make some delicious and sometimes unusual cakes or seasonal twists on old favourites

In the first baking class in May, we baked this sensational rhubarb & ginger cake, making our own roasted rhubarb curb for the filling- and getting used to a halogen hob which none of us had used before!

Baking class number 2 in  June saw us creating a gorgeous Persian Love cake with rosewater & pistachio. Students learnt how to crystalise their own, locally picked,  rose petals   and used these to decorate their cakes.

Baking Class number 3 at the end of June was a 2 cake special. Students  chose to bake either: lemon balm drizzle cake using chopped lemon balm from my garden in Guiseley or an Elderflower Drizzle cake using home made elderflower cordial and decorated with fresh flowers picked that day.

I believe in making classes special and sociable so every class ended with a tea party. We sat down to enjoy the cake I had baked with  tea & home made cordials served on The Travelling Tea Ladies beautiful vintage china . Students then proudly took their cakes home to share with friends and family.

It was great to have families involved in the classes.  One student’s wife & kids joined in all our tea parties when they came  to pick him up. They even helped out with the icing and washing up in one class. In our second class we had Jenny & Amber, grandmother & grand daughter learning together. This inspired me to offer a family baking class which you can read about in another blog. We plan to keep baking at Get Cooking and offer at least one class each term so keep your eye out and do come and bake with us.

Our next class will be on Saturday 1st October baking with gorgeous autumnal fruits. Details & booking  on www.get-cooking.org.uk from 15th August

And here’s some lovely feedback from one of the students: Alison from Jackdaw Decor who baked the Elderflower drizzle cake and brought us the lovely, personalised cake flags  you see in the lemon balm drizzle cake photo

“Yesterday evening I had the rare treat of attending The Travelling Tea Ladies baking taster course learning how to make elderflower drizzle cake….. what a lovely lesson to take – a really fun group of people, a nice informal teaching style in the very smart setting of Get Cooking, Leeds.
Becky is planning more of these later in the year… I cannot recommend them highly enough – the results taste delicious 🙂 “

What sort of baking would you like to learn?

After running 3 successful taster baking classes at the lovely Get Cooking school we’ve decided to hold a family baking class this summer holidays.

I love getting children involved in baking. It’s great to be familiar with a kitchen from an early age and to have some knowledge of where food comes from and what you can do with ingredients.  I learned to bake with my older sister and so want to inspire other families to bake together. It was so lovely to have some family involvement in the first 3 classes we decided to hold a child friendly baking class where kids can learn to cook alongisde mum, dad, brothers,sisters, aunties uncles or grandma’s & grandads!

Cakes you can bake:

We  are really excited to have been asked by Get Cooking! to run some baking classes at their new Cookery School in Farsley, Leeds. We are passionate about baking with local, seasonal produce so are really looking forward to sharing our knowledge with people who want to improve their baking skills. we’ll be showing people how to bake with local fruit, herbs and flowers.

We had a great time at the Get Cooking! School Open Day  on 22nd April talking to people about our “Bake the Seasons” taster classes. The cake samples we brought went down really well: Ginger sponge with Rhubarb Curd; Lemon Balm Drizzle cake and Persian Love Cake (Rosewater & Pistachio.)

Our voting system showed Rhubarb & Ginger cake coming top so this is what we’ll be teaching people to bake at our first class on Saturday 21st May 1.30pm-4.30pm.  (don’t worry if you don’t like rhubarb we’ll have other flavour options too!) We’ll even bring along our vintage crockery so everyone can enjoy a slice with a nice cup of tea at the end of the class. You also get to take your own cake home.

Classes cost £45 and places are limited. Book yours by emailing me at hello@travellingtealadies.co.uk or book via the Get Cooking website (after Friday 6th May).

We’ll be holding more  Bake The Seasons classes on  Saturday 18th June 1.30-4.30 pm and on Tuesday 28th June 7pm-9pm.  More baking classes to come too, like some family baking classes. Join our mailing list to get news of future classes.

The History of cake giving on Mothering Sunday

It’s Mothers day next Sunday so those of us who still have our mum’s with us will be treating them, or maybe as a mother you’ll expect to be treated yourself. What could be a nicer treat than  afternoon tea with your loved ones?

Mothering Sunday , the more traditional name, always falls  on the  4th Sunday of the Christian Season of Lent. This  mid-lent Sunday was when people went back to their home or “mother”,  churches to celebrate mass and the Lenten restrictions were lifted. A good thing for you to know if you’ve given up sweet treats this Lent!

By the 17th century, Mothering Sunday had become a well established religious custom in Britain. Wealthy households would send their servants home on that day to visit their mothers.

It was customary for children to bring their mothers a gift of a ‘mothering cake’, which later became known as the Easter Simnel Cake. Here’s my mother’s Simnel cake , we always have one at Easter.

If you want to treat your mother to tea and cake but you or she can’t face the crowds next Sunday why not get us to bring afternoon tea to you. For £15 a head we can provide you with a full afternoon tea of cakes, savouries and scones, beautiful crockery, cutlery and table linen which we can deliver to your house and set up. You can then enjoy a delightful afternoon tea with your mum and  you don’t even have to do the washing up!

We just ask you to clear away any uneaten food, pack up the dirty crockery and we’ll be back to pick it all up when convenient.

Perfect for older mums who may be too frail to cope with a busy restaurant or tearoom.