At the end of 2019 The Cooking Academy team welcomed Chugai Pharma to our Langley venue in Slough for a corporate cookery event. This embraced the festive season by giving back to the local community and donating all the food cooked by Chugai Pharma to charity.

In celebration of Chinese New Year, we're sharing our prawn & mushroom Chinese dumplings! Making dumplings in for Chinese New Year is a tradition in many Asian households. The process of making them can involve the whole family, from creating the different fillings to the precise folding techniques of the dim sum wrappers. Dumplings are usually filled with ground meat and chopped vegetables but in this version we've gone for prawns. 

esco recently joined us at our Dunstable venue for an evening of cooking, learning and team building!Our Dunstable location in Bedfordshire is an ideal location for larger teambuilding events, with three kitchens there is more than enough space for everyone to get involved. Delegates got to experience what it's like to cook in a professional kitchen and find out what it might feel to be on Masterchef!

It’s that time of year again when many people’s thoughts turn to eating more healthily. Most sensible eating is about commonsense- we know that it’s not good to miss breakfast, eat too many sugary salty snacks or subsist on a diet of convenience food. We also know it’s wise to exercise moderation, eat a good variety of fruit and vegetables, consume less meat and drink plenty of water. What we probably pay less attention to is what’s in a diet- isn’t food just fuel?

Are you looking for a team building event which everyone can enjoy? Here at The Cooking Academy we specialise in corporate cookery events which are fun, friendly and competitive. We have several venues near to Milton Keynes and throughout Buckinghamshire and in nearby Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Our venues can accommodate groups of 8 right through to 80 delegates.

Bring your team together and let The Cooking Academy create a fun yet friendly competitive cookery team building event. Hertfordshire is the home of The Cooking Academy and we have several venues near to Hemel Hempstead and throughout Hertfordshire for groups of 8 right through to 80 delegates at our Dunstable Cookery teambuilding location.

So you want to be healthy and you’re on-board with Veganuary, but how do you make sure you have a healthy balanced diet throughout the day? The Daily Dozen are the 12 essential things to eat, drink and do to maintain a healthy mind, body & soul ready for to face the challenges of the new year and be fit for life and fit for the new you.

In December The Cooking Academy team welcomed Active International to our Langley venue for a fun and festive cookery event. Step in a cookery Christmas party! Cooking is usually an activity reserved for personal time with family or loved ones. Bringing something which is reminiscent of home life into a team environment really breaks down professional barriers and enables fantastic collaboration between colleagues.

For the first time in a long time I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year, not because I have achieved everything, I have set out to do, but rather because I haven’t! Instead, I gave myself a good talking to in a quiet, calm and positive manner about all the things I have achieved and reflected on how I achieved them (essentially with dogged determination and utter willpower).

APM’s leadership team visited The Cooking Academy in Rickmansworth and put their cookery skills to the test. The group took part in a team building cookery class in November, which saw them preparing delicious fresh recipes that were donated to a local women’s refuge.

Whether you’re a seasoned veggie, this is your first Christmas as a vegan or you have a vegetarian or vegan guest for Christmas, there's no reason the main dish can't be as flavoursome and impressive as a classic turkey version!

Most people tend to think of inflammation in terms of external signs: swelling, bruising, redness, heat and so on, like when you stub your toe, that immediate pain you feel is the body working in action to help fix whatever just happened. It is a normal and effective response that facilitates healing.Unfortunately, chronic inflammation is a different story and can be caused by diet, stress, lack of exercise, smoking, pollution, and lack of sleep. It can be seen in those with arthritis, fibromyalgia, coeliac disease, and irritable bowel disease. It can also play a part in asthma and diabetes.On occasions, weight gain can also be attributable to inflammation as inflammation in the body makes our weight control hormone (leptin) to be less effective, which therefore causes weight gain. Thus, the two often come hand in hand.

There are classic Christmas turkey recipes for a reason - they're tried and tested and always a crowd pleaser, except for the part where you have to fight over who gets some of the crispy bacon which enrobes the turkey during cooking. But why not shake it up and spice it up this Christmas by serving up a turkey that is equally as delicious but with an altogether different flavour profile. Read on for three alternative ways to serve up your fantastic festive bird.

Whether you know your Christmas turkey recipe like the back of your hand or it's your first time in charge of cooking up the festive lunch, I'm sure you'll want to know a little secret to cooking THE best turkey of your life!? We've all been there - the long hours lovingly cooking a turkey, basting it regularly to make sure it turns out perfectly only for it to come out dry as a bone. It's heartbreaking. But we've learned about a life-changing tip, popular in America, that will put an end to dry turkey forever! It doesn’t involve braising it in coke or cooking it upside down- the secret is brine.

Sticky toffee pudding is such a British classic, and perfect for those cold winter evenings. What if we told you it can be made vegan, without scrimping on the delicious toffee sauce! The combination of medjool dates and different spices make for a rich aromatic sponge. This recipe will not disappoint!

It may be frosty but it's still technically autumn, this year seems to be speeding by? Although the nights are drawing in I do love the misty moisty mornings which herald this season of plenty.As the leaves continue to change colour from green through to glorious hues of red, orange and russet there’s nothing nicer than pulling on a pair of sturdy boots and going for a long walk, kicking up the leaves as you go. Of course a bit of bracing exercise tends to stimulate the appetite and makes one look forward to the comforting dishes that are characteristic of this time of year.

In this week’s Sunday Times I read a very interesting article by Andrew Gregory about how scientists have discovered the power of using curcumin (the plant compound that gives turmeric its colour) along with other natural ingredients to fight superbugs without the need for antibiotics. Using nanocapsules of curcumin they have successfully neutralised one of the world's most pernicious superbugs- helicobacter pylori. In a world where we are increasingly hearing about antibiotic resistance, a discovery like this could spell a huge change in the way we fight these bugs.

It was good old William Shakespeare who coined the phrase “in a pickle” and it is certainly true that pickling, preserving and fermenting are some of the oldest methods of food preservation. These processes fell out of favour with the advent of mass refrigeration but have now firmly wormed their way back into fashion. All things bacterial and vinegary have sloughed off their slightly fusty image and have become super cool.

One of our chefs recently brought in a bounty of apples to the cooking school, chef Sarah Leary spent her weekend creating jars of apple and chilli jelly ready in-time for national apple day to make the most of this much-loved ingredient.

Not only is this a real treat, the spices also have a nutritional boost. Cinnamon is a rich source of iron and calcium and has the highest antioxidant strength of all food sources, ginger is a circulatory stimulant with anti-inflammatory properties and nutmeg is a good source of minerals. So it tastes good and it does good!