Gift buying is a difficult business.  Plus, there’s always that person on your list that already has everything they want. With Christmas coming up, The Rubens at the Palace has the perfect solution for you with their newly launched gourmet cooking masterclass. The experience includes a class with Bake-Off Professionals alumni Sarah Houghting and Royal Afternoon Tea for two. It is completed with a Sabrage demonstration which, to the uninitiated, is the art of opening a bottle of Champagne with a sword.

The day starts with a quick debriefing with Chef Houghting to go over the schedule over coffee in The Palace Lounge (or tea if you would prefer, of course!).

After the initial catchup, it’s aprons on, and you are presented with your recipe cards. We started with ‘Mrs Tollman’s Cape Seed Loaf.’ Mrs Tollman was one of the founders of Red Carnation hotel group. An avid lover of food, she created a whole legion of recipes which are popular with its patrons. ‘Mrs Tollman always has a sense of what customers like, her dishes are for everybody’ says Sarah. For this recipe, mounds of seeds are folded into a mixture of honey and yoghurt. It's all in one bowl and could be whipped up and thrown in the oven quickly. The result of which, is a moreish and versatile bread. It features on the Royal Afternoon Tea, on the open smoked salmon sandwich with caviar and cream cheese. Me and the other class attendees agreed that we were really looking forward to making this at home. My take-home loaf was demolished without toppings and was loved by the whole family.

My favourite tip of the day - Sarah showed us that if you dip your hand in water before pushing honey off a spoon, it creates a barrier, so your hand doesn't get sticky, a trick which works with any sugar syrup. I couldn’t believe how effective this was until I tried it myself!

Chefs can have a bad reputation for not suffering fools and dietary requirements gladly, but Houghting is an unfalteringly patient teacher. She is also enthusiastic about making sure that everyone can enjoy the delicious morsels on offer. When we visited, she had created some macarons using sunflower seeds for someone with a nut allergy. This conjured up imaginings a gritty slate abomination for me, but she showed us the end of result and they were beautiful, and miraculously snow white. Houghting designed the Vegan Afternoon Tea back in 2021, and Rubens has become somewhat of a haven for people with dietaries since.

We started on the macarons, loved by all, feared by most home cooks. If you over whisk, it turns into liquid and rocks explained Sarah. On Bake Off Professionals, Cherish Finden glanced at their bowl and said, 'I imagine you're starting again on that mixture?' Houghting and her partner realised their mistake and meekly replied 'Yes of course chef…!'

Next up was the chocolate rocks, another Mrs Tollman classic recipe which was chocolate pieces made up of chocolate, seeds, nuts and spices. For this, we learned how to temper chocolate – the process of slowly heating and cooling chocolate so that the fat molecules crystallise evenly, resulting in a smooth and shiny finish.

 The atmosphere in the bustling Rubens Kitchens is a fantastic backdrop for the class. We watched a giant cake being carefully assembled; tensions high as one false step would result in a ruined cake. Its components, alternating layers of delicate cake, ganache and fig marmalade, to be cut into delicate squares to feature on the Afternoon Tea. Bright green and blue macarons were carefully piped onto parchment. Trays of nuts with a special spice mix ready to be roasted for bar snacks.

Each recipe can be adapted to your own preferences and ideas. For the truffles, warm coffee and liqueur was added to the ganache, but at home you could make your own infusions. Sarah explained that say, for a mint truffle, you could infuse the cream by adding crushed mint leaves to steep overnight before straining with a muslin.

Once all the treats were ready, they were attractively bagged up in a Red Carnation carrier to take home. The macarons were among the best we’d ever tasted, made even sweeter by the fact that we could recreate them at home.

The Rubens at the Palace Gourmet Experience is the perfect day out of learning and indulgence, enjoyable for the seasoned home cook or total novice.

Book or see the gift vouchers.