It’s August, which can only mean one thing – the nation goes Great British Bake Off crazy! I love baking and I class myself as an enthusiastic amateur rather than a master baker, my main problem is confidence, I look at the glorious show-stoppers on GBBO and I know my creations would be laughed out of the show tent. Thankfully (and excitingly) I was invited along to an Introductory Baking Class at the Wilmslow Kitchen Cookery School, an foodie blogger event hosted by kitchen legends – Kenwood and Currys PC World.

We were introduced to the rather beautiful Kenwood kMix mixers, they come in a variety of lovely colours and I was drawn to the teal one, which perfectly matches my blog. I did point this fact out rather loudly and hopefully, but alas my request to take it home where it so clearly belonged fell on deaf ears.

The Kenwood kMix is a contemporary version of the classic Kenwood mixer, it comes with the K beater, power whisk, flexi beater as well as a metal or glass bowl.

Sarah, David and Brian from Wilmslow Kitchen Cookery School gave us a run through of our busy afternoon of baking. In pairs (I was with Emma from Farmer’s Wife & Mummy) we were each going to make meringues, a Swiss roll and a rich chocolate tart. I was particularly excited (and terrified) as the thought of making and rolling a Swiss roll is an idea fraught with peril, the demonstration drew gasps of amazement from the watching crowd of bloggers.

We were to tackle what I thought were some fairly difficult tasks, thankfully we were expertly walked through it all and what’s more it was all very enjoyable. I have long feared the meringue, but after trying my hand at the Intro to Baking session at Wilmslow Kitchen Cookery School I went home and made my own delicious batch.

The Swiss roll was, and still is frankly terrifying, but doable, and I’ve had a request to try and recreate the recipe at home. I am increasingly diary intolerant, so decided not to use cream in my Swiss roll and was given the option of a vegan buttercream, which was half a cup of vegan soy based spread whipped with half a cup of icing sugar and a lot (their words) of vanilla extract. It was pretty yummy and I didn’t miss the cream.

Here’s what we made, the meringues were by far my favourite, the small boy liked them too. If you like a rich hit of chocolate then the chocolate tart is for you. But the Swiss roll was the winner – really light and if you’re brave, really easy to roll – honestly, if I can do it, you can too!