Anyone following @PewshamBellesWI on Twitter will have seen April's delight with her time spent at Denman recently [she won one of the bursaries at our Christmas 2016 meeting - Ed] and the tempting treats she made on the patisserie course, taught by Kelly Mauger. Here are her highlights in blog form... using her tweets and photos (edited slightly) to tell the story. The picture at the top of this post shows April with her fellow classmates, "I met some other Wiltshire Federation ladies from Minety and Christian Malford! Small world - they remember Pewsham Belles from the Annual Meeting."
"WELL. Let me tell you, I hope my ship gets a move on with coming in. Everything you hear about the brilliance of Denman College is true. I am LOVING it. Genuinely blown away, such a kind and warm welcome, and such a friendly group here with open arms!" She notes later how anyone attending Denman on their own was soon made to feel welcome, "It was wonderful how every time anyone walked in alone, at least one table would turn round and invite her to join them." April stayed in the room kitted out by Bedfordshire Federation, hence the Luton straw hat and her remark, "Hurray! Patchwork quilt ahoy," She added, "One more thing! Gawd the dinner", whilst not forgetting the "Sponge pudding and HOT custard for lunch. I think that tells us all we need to know about Denman College."
So how was the course? As you can see, the patisserie course taught a number of different techniques to produce lots of tempting treats. "I made the Florentines thinking of my friend Kay at Catford WI, I know she likes a WI Florentine." There was also a little bit of celebrity spotting, "May Martin from The Great British Sewing Bee was running a course at same time. She came into the kitchen to come round and see what we were doing at the exact moment we were piping macarons with great concentration and couldn’t look up to speak to her :( " The best part about the course? "The one thing I really appreciated was how gentle and casual it was. We had a really chatty tutor who took her time showing us, so we really got the understanding of why and how." It wasn't all sweetness and light. Be prepared for some hard work as April told me on Facebook afterwards, "I watch A LOT of cooking telly, so I have learned a lot over the years, but this was the next level. Also, I don’t really bake, I cook meals mostly. I never realised how much washing up baking produces! She added, "I was astonished how tired I was. Standing up the whole time I suppose. We were lucky, we didn’t have evening class on the second day which the other courses did. I was full of intentions to sit in the bar chatting, but I had to go to bed with book instead for a rest!" Thank goodness that hasn't put her off, "I’m booking the American baking course next January.", she adds "Don't forget that there's a free taxi pickup from the station for any course with an overnight stay. It's particularly useful when you have lots of cake boxes to wrangle into a large rucksack for the journey home." You can see what else takes your fancy on the Denman website, (cookery, crafts or lifestyle courses) which includes the option to download a pdf brochure if you wish to browse all the goodies away from your computer. I have my eye on the ukulele weekends!