We are particularly excited to be working with the Sheerwater Community Project to raise funds for their fantastic Cookery Club for local children. The project has been running for three years delivering weekly sessions with the aim, to not only promote healthy eating (some of the time!), but to teach the valuable life skill that is cooking.  The project was set-up by Woking Borough Council along with Sheerwater Asda and has been aided by local volunteers helping out along the way as well. Courses run during term time and vary in length.

The kids from this community cooking project will be taking part in a masterclass on the Friday morning of Woking Food and drink Festival.  They will enjoy an hour of teaching at the Academy before appearing on the main demonstration stage to show off the dishes they have cooked.  We will be announcing their competition to win a fabulous prize, with all funds raised from this activity being directed back into the project. For more information about the project please contact Gary Cordery gary.cordery@woking.gov.uk  or call 01483 743424.

Visitors to the 3 day food festival will also be invited to take part in our ‘Guess how many cherry tomatoes in the jar’ competition, running from Friday morning through to Sunday afternoon. Guesses cost just £1 and can be cast with one of our team at the Academy or on our Tante Marie food stall, with the lucky winner receiving a voucher for 2 people to attend our fantastic Academy Chef’s Table: Autumn Menu evening at Tante Marie. The winner will be announced in the main demonstration theatre on Sunday afternoon– and of course all money raised will go straight to the Sheerwater Community Project.

Our Kid’s Cookery Sessions will run across the whole of Woking Food & Drink Festival on 31^st August – 2nd September 2018 between 11.00 am – 3.30 pm. Booking in advance is essential and tickets are £10 per child, with all proceeds going to another fantastic local charity Woking & Sam Beare Hospices.

As an extra special bonus, fresh coffee and cakes will be available to parents as they watch their children mixing up a storm, for a small donation to both of these worthy charities Yum!

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• Sarah Akhurst
• Graduated 2010
• Journalist

Coming from a background in journalism, Sarah made the decision in 2010 to turn a long held passion in to a career she would cherish and enrolled on to our Intensive Cordon Bleu Diploma. Her plan was to gain a practical grounding in professional cookery before using her new skills and qualification to launch herself back in to the niche area of food and drink journalism.

Sarah went on to head up one of two food teams at the content marketing agency Seven Publishing – whose clients include two of the largest food media brands, Sainsbury’s Magazine and Weight Watchers.

Sarah’s team was responsible for creating all of the food content in Weight Watchers’ monthly magazine and also for developing recipes for Sainsbury’s online content; including its recipe hub, Instagram and Facebook feeds and also for above the line advertising campaigns.

Sarah is now the Editor at Co-op Food, the Co-op’s instore magazine.

The Tante Marie Cordon Bleu Diploma

Our many years of experience in the hospitality industry has demonstrated to us the exciting opportunities available to ambitious, enthusiastic individuals and those with an entrepreneurial spirit. School leavers with a bit of drive can achieve professional qualifications that will allow them to reap the rewards of choosing one of the many career paths in the hospitality sector.

Many of our alumni have achieved successful and lucrative careers, ranging from internationally acclaimed Head Chefs and restaurateurs, such as Neil Rankin to professional food stylists and journalists.

Whichever direction school leavers want to take in food, Tante Marie provides a diverse and challenging environment in which students thrive. Students join our Cordon Bleu Diploma from age 16 years and no prior learning, experience or grades are required to enrol. This makes us, not only a great choice for those who have always dreamt of a career in food, but also for young people who may not be academically minded, but still wish to work hard for a professional qualification that will give them the skills and life experience they need to confidently enter the working world.

We always welcome contact from people who need honest advice or guidance about professional courses, qualifications and careers. Please call +44(0)1483 726957, email or drop in to the Academy and one of our team will be happy to help you.

The post Exam Results Week Special: What you can achieve with a professional qualification from Tante Marie appeared first on Tante Marie.

We are collaborating with two local Horsell based businesses, Prince & Sons Butchers and Thurstons Brewery, this year to create some great community spirit and of course to support these fantastic local producers.

Sausage Rolls

The Tante Marie sausage roll – Flaky, light pastry with a classic fantastically flavoured sausage filling with a hint of sage and a Marmite glaze

The Thurston’s ale and onion roll – Sticky onions caramelised with Thurston’s Un-American pale ale flavour this perfectly porky filling, encased in golden pastry and glazed with more delicious ale

The properly tasty veggie roll- Butternut squash, chickpeas, spinach, feta, harissa and more, zingy bright flavours wrapped in buttery pastry, this delightful veggie roll really packs a punch

Brownies

The classic triple chocolate Tante Marie brownie – Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate, this is the best classic brownie around!

The black velvet brownie – Chocolate and Thurstons milk stout paired with delicious Kentish cherries, and sour cherry jam make this dark fudgy brownie something special!

The banoffee brownie – Bananas in caramel, oaty biscuit nuggets and caramel chocolate inside an intense chocolate brownie, banoffee heaven!

Ice Cream

Vanilla malted milk ice cream – Creamy vanilla ice cream with a hint of comforting malt, the topping of choice for a banoffee brownie!

Raspberry ripple ice cream – Swirls of raspberry jam and smashed whole raspberries decorate this velvety vanilla ice cream, a fruity addition to a cherry stout brownie would make a taste sensation!

Coffee ice cream – Dark espresso flavours this smooth, rich ice cream, perfect pairing for a triple chocolate brownie!

Masterclasses!

Want to learn how to make the delicious food from our stall? Why not come along to one of our masterclasses!

We will be holding hour long cookery sessions for the public at the Academy. Learn how to create the delicious food that we are serving on our stall! Our fudgy brownies start with the classic base recipe the “Tante Marie triple chocolate brownie”, and can be embellished with optional banoffee flavours or sour cherries and stout if that takes your fancy. Alternatively you can make our mouth-watering sausage rolls, “The Tante Marie classic”, the “Thurston’s ale and mustard” and the “Properly tasty veggie one”.

These classes will run on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd September. Booking in advance is essential and tickets are £15 with all proceeds going to our local charity, Woking and Sam Beare Hospices. Click here to find out more.

The post Tante Marie Food Stall appeared first on Tante Marie.

From Friday 31st August – Sunday 2nd September the free to attend festival will be taking over Woking town centre and Tante Marie will be very much a part of the festivities with a number of exciting new attractions planned.

Adult cooking Masterclasses

We will be holding hour long cookery sessions for the public to come to the Academy and learn how to create the delicious food that we are serving on our stall! Our fudgy brownies start with the classic base recipe the “Tante Marie triple chocolate brownie”, and can be embellished with optional banoffee flavours or sour cherries and stout if that takes your fancy. Alternatively you can make our mouth-watering sausage rolls, “The Tante Marie classic”, the “Thurston’s ale and mustard” and the “Properly tasty veggie one”.

These classes will run on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd September. Booking in advance is essential and tickets are £15 with all proceeds going to our local charity, Woking and Sam Beare Hospices. Click here to find out more.

Kids cooking Masterclasses

We are working alongside two local charities, to offer cooking masterclasses to the aspiring young chefs of Woking. Working from our state of the art kitchens in the Academy, our teachers will be taking children aged 7-13 years through how to make their very own healthy “scrumbles”.  No hot ovens are involved, so kids can really get involved, blending different combinations of dried fruits, nuts and chocolate to create scrummy little nutritious energy balls, all in manageable 30 minute sessions.

Our Kid’s Cookery Sessions will run across the whole of Woking Food & Drink Festival on 31st August – 2nd September 2018 between 11.00am – 3.30pm. Booking in advance is essential and tickets are £10 per child, with all proceeds going to Woking & Sam Beare Hospices.

Tante Marie Food Stall

This year, as well as our residency in the festival demonstration theatre, our hugely talented teachers will be manning their very own food stall. We will be serving a delicious selection of sausage rolls and yummy brownies served with ice cream, which you also have the chance to make at the Academy on one of our masterclasses.

We are collaborating with two local Horsell based businesses, Prince & Sons Butchers and Thurstons Brewery, this year to create some great community spirit and of course to support these fantastic local producers.

And last but not least, Tante Marie Demonstrations!

As regular attendees to Woking Food and Drink Festival will know, the super talented senior teachers of Tante Marie Culinary Academy take up residency in the festival demonstration theatre at various times during the 3 day weekend.

Each day Claire, Ally and Al will be demonstrating lots of beautiful dishes to the public, there may even be some yummy tasters to tickle your taste buds after each demonstration.

A full programme of the demonstrations can be found on the festival website

Find out more about Woking Food and Drink Festival here, and book your tickets with the Academy here or by calling us on  01483 726957.

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Part 5 of our Sustainability Series

This article is part of our ongoing series about how Tante Marie Culinary Academy leads the way as a truly sustainable cookery school resulting in our 3 star rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association and recent Sustainability Award at the Toast of Surrey Business Awards in 2018.

Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and receive notifications about the next posts in our Sustainability Series

Sustainability Focus: Society – Celebrate Local and Seasonal

We live in a highly connected world. In fact, it could even be argued that these days ignorance is a lifestyle choice which few of us choose. In such a connected world, where you can fly non-stop from London to Perth, what does “Local” even mean on a menu?

Food businesses all over the world are now claiming their food is “locally sourced”. It is what customers like, and even expect to see. But can customers really take comfort in this statement? It is an easy claim to make, but a hard one to truly deliver.

Being awarded a 3 star rating by the Sustainable Restaurant Association means being able to back up a “locally sourced” claim with evidence and the reality is that most food businesses who make the claim are barely scratching the surface of what this statement means. How do we ensure that Tante Marie Culinary Academy is a truly sustainable cookery school?

Simply buying from your local butcher or fishmonger does not mean you are sourcing local produce. To achieve that, you must understand where the butcher and fishmonger are sourcing from. One could be buying delicious Argentinian steak from a butcher just around the corner from your house. That is indeed a local butcher but it is Argentinian beef. (It is almost certainly Aberdeen Angus, a breed which was introduced to Argentina in 1879 from Scotland, due to its hardiness and ability to withstand the harsh Argentinian climate). Buying Aberdeen Angus from a butcher in London does not make it local.

At Tante Marie Culinary Academy, we buy all our meat from Prince & Sons in Horsell. They are based 1 mile from the Academy, but that is not why they tick the ‘Locally Sourced” box. That accolade is achieved because Prince & Sons guarantee that all our meat is British and they go one step further by ensuring all our pork is from Surrey. We have verified this claim and on that basis, we can genuinely say that we are locally sourcing. It is all about traceability, and the responsibility for being able to demonstrate this lies with the person making the claim, and extends far beyond simply putting the words “Locally Sourced” on a menu.

The seasonality is a vital part of local sourcing. Even just insisting on British produce can sometimes seriously diminish the variety of fresh fruit and vegetables which are available at certain times of the year. There are of course many preserving methods which can be very useful in order to keep things to use once the season is over, and with the great diversity of hybrid plants now available, growers are figuring out how to extend British seasons for as long as possible. Buying fresh and in-season from local British farmers is essential to the future of farming in this country if we want to keep this option available to us. The difference in taste and quality of a fresh carrot pulled and eaten straight from the earth is like nothing you could possibly find in a supermarket. The tomato still warm from the sun and fresh from the vine will evoke memories of childhood summers and grandad’s greenhouse. Eating fresh, nutritious produce in harmony with the seasons in which it grows will make you happy and keep you healthy, which really is what food is all about.

Woking Food Festival 2018

At the 2018 Woking Food & Drink Festival, Tante Marie Culinary Academy will be serving a menu which really showcases this approach to local sourcing, with sausage rolls made with Surrey pork, (from Prince & Sons of course) and flavoured with Thurstons Brewery’s Un-American Pale Ale.

Thurstons Brewery is also in Horsell, very close to Prince & Sons. The ‘Un-American Pale Ale’ is so called because it is made in the style of an American Pale Ale (similar to an IPA) but instead of using hops and barley from the US, it uses all English hops and barley. The latter comes from a malting in Norfolk and supplied by Charles Faram Hop Factors in Worcestershire. They couldn’t be more English.

Does simply being ‘English’ or ‘British’, mean something is local?

To understand this, one must consider what it actually is that you are buying, as well as considering many other factors such as the environmental impact of its journey to your plate:

Here in Surrey, we have no coastline meaning we clearly cannot claim to source local Mackerel, for example. But we can take care to source responsibly. A trip to Billingsgate fish market in London will quite possibly result in buying British Mackerel which has been exported to France and then sold back to the UK market at a premium. Good communication with your seafood supplier means this can be avoided and our supplier, Kingfishers of Brixham, buy direct from Brixham market in the morning, where the fish has come straight from the boats. Our Mackerel is as local as we can get – in theory it can be in the kitchen within 6 hours of being landed, which means we are doing everything we can to deliver on our “Locally Sourced” claims… another step towards becoming a truly sustainable cookery school.

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The post Sustainability Series Part 5: Celebrate Local and Seasonal appeared first on Tante Marie.

Lyndy joined Tante Marie as a student in 1986, her motivation was to gain a professional qualification which would enable her to build a successful catering company.

Following her training and graduation at Tante Marie, Lyndy began her career as a small scale private chef in London. She would prepare food from her flat in the evenings to pursue her dream of one day having her own business.

Her hard work and determination paid off in in 1997, when Lyndy’s dream was realised and she formed ‘Absolute Taste’ with British businessman Ron Dennis – having met him via her work as a private chef.

Absolute Taste was set up to provide top-class hospitality for McLaren at the Formula One races, all over the world, but Lyndy’s success has meant that the company now includes restaurants, cafes, private jet catering and fixed site contracts.

Tante Marie is where it all began for Lyndy and she continues to have a huge connection with us – now as co-owner and Director of the Academy.

You can find out more about the careers enjoyed by our alumni here. Our team is always on hand to offer advice on further education options for 16+ year olds or those considering a career change, including guidance on professional qualifications and career options. Call us on (+00)1483 726957 or email info@tantemarie.co.uk.

The post Student Journeys: Life after Tante Marie appeared first on Tante Marie.

The little gherkin plants have gone crazy this week, and again, I have been picking every other day (about 12 each time!) and keeping them chilled until I have enough to make sour dill pickles using an old recipe I recently found and my new crockpot. We are still harvesting chard, this year our red rhubarb chard is most successful. The tomatoes have been enjoying the sunshine, along with the chillies and tomatillos, all of which are showing green fruits and plenty of flowers already, but it has been a battle to keep things watered during this long hot period. We harvest rainwater from the shed and greenhouse roofs and use underwater pipes and pots stuck into the soil to ensure that evaporation is limited, but have used it all up, so are crossing our fingers for a good rainfall soon – the garden is desperate! The carrot are hating the dry weather, especially as we grow them in a very large tub to avoid carrot fly (they can only fly up to 16 inches off the ground) and am finding that I cannot water them enough to keep them perky. This is partly due to the soil which is heavily cut with sand so drainage is fantastic, but not great in such a long dry spell.

The gooseberries have been and gone, and the red ones were so fantastically sweet and flavoursome that we picked and ate them straight off the bush! The redcurrants have been made into jelly and a few for the freezer and the blackcurrants are getting fat and ready to be picked in the next few days. Raspberries are starting to form fruit and have been buzzing, full of lovely bees for a couple of weeks now. The strawberries have been our biggest heartbreak of the year. We were trialling a new system of growing the plants through red plastic sheeting, an idea promoted by James Wong. The strawberries will sense the red colour beneath them and think it is competition, so will grow bigger, redder and sweeter to ensure they are chosen to be eaten, hence spreading their seeds. Everything was looking wonderful until a deer broke into the allotment and ate the entire plants, leaves, stems, fruits and all! Luckily a huge part of gardening is the love of being outside and of nature and so we forgive this little deer, even though he didn’t even leave us one berry to try. Over winter this year we will work on putting up some fencing.

July Jobs

Jobs for July include constant weeding and watering (in the evening is best and much better to give a good soak every few days rather than little bits each day) harvesting to encourage more fruit production and remembering to keep sowing those radishes and lettuce so you can have a continuous crop through the summer. Mostly it is one of the most beautiful and vibrant months in the garden so make sure you give yourself time to sit out with a cup of something delicious and take it all in with your feet up for a minute or two. Happy gardening!

Ally Molyneaux – Head Teacher

To Do List:

• Constant weeding and water – In the evening is the best time to water and much better to give them a good soak every few days rather than little bits each day
• Harvesting – to encourage more fruit production
• Sowing the radishes and lettuce – to have continuous crop throughout summer. seed heads on
• Enjoy the beautiful garden in the sunshine – July is one of the most beautiful months, put your feet up, relax and take it all in.

The post The Allotment in July appeared first on Tante Marie.

Teacher

My Favourite…Ingredient:

Liam Says:

Chorizo! I love the flavour and the combinations you can use it with.

Liam’s Tip:

You can oven roast chorizo sausages and dice to add into your dishes. Keep all of your rendered out chorizo oil as it makes delicious dressings.

My Favourite…Piece of Kitchen Kit

Liam Says:

My knives, as a chef your knives are a very important tool for your   trade. Always take care of them and keep them in good condition.

Liam’s Tip:

Sharpen them every time you take them out of the wallet. The most expensive knives may not always be the greatest knife!

My Favourite…Dinner party Dish:

Liam Says:

Roast Lamb, you can’t be a good roast leg of lamb, succulent and tender with a redcurrant jus, extra crispy potatoes, braised leeks and carrots and a traditional cauliflower and broccoli cheese.

Liam’s Tip:

Once you have par-boiled your potatoes, give them a good shake to get a nice fluffy outside which helps get them extra crispy. Use duck or goose fat for the best results.

My Favourite…Chef:

Liam Says:

The ones I work with, they have the greatest knowledge and skills and are truly great to work with.

Liam’s Top Tips in the Kitchen:

Always take pride in what you do. Love your food. If you don’t care about you do, it shows! Be passionate about what you do and always be open to new things.

The post Tante Marie Teachers: Meet the Chef appeared first on Tante Marie.

Part 4 of our Sustainability Series

This article is part of our ongoing series about how Tante Marie Culinary Academy leads the way as a truly sustainable food business, resulting in our 3 star rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association and recent nomination for the Sustainability Award at the Toast of Surrey Business Awards in 2018.

Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and receive notifications about the next posts in our Sustainability Series

Sustainability Focus: Society – Support the Community

In the second post of our Sustainability Series we highlighted what a positive step our relocation into new premises had been for the business, particularly in helping to reduce our energy consumption per student.

Another effect of this was a dramatic increase in requests from the many good causes in the region, asking us for charitable support.

We immediately recognised we were well placed to help them and we would love to be able to support all of these worthy causes. We quickly realised we could fill the academy ten times over with spaces we allocate to charities, but we would soon find ourselves without a business.

With that in mind we identified that the best way for us to make a real difference is to focus our efforts on one charity and deliver greater results than by trying to help many charities with little bits here and there.

To create a policy which is fair, we review our nominated charity every two years and invite worthy causes to submit applications which are considered against our core business principles.

We have previously supported Linkable, who support children and vulnerable adults with learning difficulties. More recently we have been supporting Woking & Sam Beare Hospices through a range of coordinated events:

• Woking Food & Drink Festival has become a major annual feature in the region. Upwards of 150,000 visitors flock to Woking over three days. This is a great opportunity for us to support this worthy cause and help raise money by auctioning the food we cook in the Tante Marie Culinary Academy Theatre
• We also create bespoke courses for the hospice, which they use as fundraising opportunities
• In December 2018 we are running a demonstration morning for the charity to get the festive spirit engaged
• Our own Managing Director, Andrew Maxwell, supports Woking & Sam Beare Hospices during his regular summer triathlon season which also includes Prudential ride London

Such organisations need the support of their local community and in the case of Woking & Sam Beare Hospices we may all one-day find ourselves needing their fabulous care. What we can do for them is only small in terms of their overall fundraising needs, but it is an important step. We do what we can, and no matter how much we can do, we aim to do more. Supporting Woking & Sam Beare Hospices is one piece of the puzzle within our wider society focus. Treating our staff fairly, feeding people well and supporting the community combine and these little things give our staff and students a lovely morale boost.

“We are delighted that Tante Marie have chosen us their charity for the next two years. The fact they can support us as a key partner is such a fantastic relationship for the hospice and we are extremely grateful for the way in which Tante Marie support us. With generous auction prizes for our hospice led events, special cooking demonstrations dedicated to Woking and Sam Beare Hospices and their huge support at the annual Woking Food Festival, we really are extremely lucky to be working with them.

As a charity, for every £5 of cost we have to fundraise £4, so having the support of local businesses like Tante Marie is fantastic and we are extremely thankful for all they do.” 

– Woking and Sam Beare Hospices

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The post Sustainability Series Part 4: Supporting the Community appeared first on Tante Marie.

Arrive early to the Academy and be taken on a tour of our state of the art facilities, including 4 teaching kitchens, theory room with extensive student library and bright demonstration theatre. Our staff will be happy to answer any questions you have about our Professional and Gap Year courses and give you information on start dates, course content and qualifications.

The Open Day will give you a little insight into what life would be like at Tante Marie and will give you the perfect opportunity to find out more about us and get started with your culinary journey.

If you would like to find out more or register your attendance to our open day, please get in touch on 01483 726957 or email us on info@tantemarie.co.uk

However you are more than welcome to just turn up on the day if you haven’t registered with us in advance.

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