# 37 Take a Cookery/Baking course & #38 Learn to make Macarons

Ok, so completing two things in one go is a tiny bit of a cheat, but never mind. I didn't plan it that way from the start but as I had both on the list and the course sounded good I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Despite loving cooking and baking I'd never got round to taking a course on the subject. I've visited the Macarons & More shop in Norwich, which is run by the Masterchef runner-up Tim Kinnaird, and tried some of their delicious macarons and brownies so when I heard about their macaron making class it sounded ideal.

The courses aren't held in the shop but in their much more spacious kitchen on the edge of the city where they have plenty of space to prepare all the goodies before they go on sale.

On arrival we were welcomed into a little reception room and we offered drinks and cakes (home-made of course). We then got to meet Tim Kinnaird who got us to introduce ourselves and then explained the itinerary for the morning. Then it was time to move through to the kitchen area and our workstations. Everything was set up ready for us with all of the ingredients weighed out - if only all cooking was like this!

Then the cooking began. I won't go into too much detail but at each stage Tim gave us a demonstration and then left us to have a go ourselves. It was great fun and, while macarons can be a bit tricky to make, when shown everything step by step we all produced some pretty good results.

At the end of the baking session there was still more to come as we were shown back into the reception room for lunch. I thought we might be offered something simple like sandwiches but in fact we were all presented with a delicious dish of veggie chili and potato wedges. And to follow we were treated to a mango and lime mousse which they had been trialling in the kitchen.

When lunch was over we were given all of our creations to take home, together with the recipes and a box of Macarons & More macarons (so we could compare ours to the real thing!) 

The course wasn't cheap but I definitely felt I'd got my money's worth as it was such an enjoyable experience. Tim Kinnaird was also very nice and happy to share stories from his time on Masterchef. They run other courses, including a pork pie making courses which sound very tempting!