Menu planning
Dinner party dishes and accompaniments
High-level culinary techniques
Presentation ideas
Recipe adaptation
°C
ULINARY ARTS
An exciting St Catherine’s experience
Taking place in our impressive Art & Makerspace kitchen, the Culinary Arts course offers your daughter the opportunity to learn elegant classic and contemporary cooking as they prepare a range of exciting starters, main courses and show-stopping desserts – not to mention impressive pre-meal canapés and post-meal confections!
Culinary Arts at St Catherine’s will provide your daughter with the confidence and the enthusiasm to cook to a very high standard. On this 18-week course your daughter will develop many technical culinary skills that will prove invaluable for any occasion, whether cooking for your next dinner party, taking on the catering for a ski season or simply cooking well for pleasure. Skills include making different doughs from scratch for an enticing selection of pastas, breads and pastries; effective preparation and cooking of ingredients for a range of dishes; using cooking methods such as slow-roasting, pickling and smoking to take dishes to the next level.
Each session is up to three hours in duration, during which students will typically make two key dishes. Throughout the course, Mr Friend will be giving the students menu-planning tips and ways to adapt dishes to suit personal tastes.
Please note that this course is best suited to students who have a good level of cooking experience and are eager to widen their repertoire of dishes and skills.
Your course tutor
Mr Friend’s life-long passion is cooking and he has a particular penchant for baking. He has been a member of the Food and Nutrition Department since 2018 and now leads the department. He is proud to be running this very special extra-curricular course for St Catherine’s Sixth Form students.
His confidence and flair with food saw him in the final of the first series of BBC1’s Best Home Cook, where he offered his creations to be judged by Mary Berry DBE.
Mr Friend runs his own cooking website and often gives foodrelated advice on the radio.
A list of the cooking sessions, including examples of typical dishes, is given below:
WEEK 1: Bread 1 roasted onion & chorizo focaccia; smoked cheese soda bread
WEEK 2: Bread 2 herby garlic flatbreads, filled tear and share bread
WEEK 3: Starters 1 asparagus and Feta galette; smoked haddock and sweetcorn chowder
WEEK 4: Starters 2 scallops and pancetta on garlic ciabatta; roast peppers with herbed brioche crumb
WEEK 5: Starters 3 smoked mackerel pâté; prawn toasts with homemade sweet chilli and lemongrass dipping sauce
WEEK 6: Fresh pasta herb-laminated pasta; two-tone pasta; pesto sauce; pea and smoked salmon sauce
WEEK 7: Filled pasta ravioli and tortellini filled with beetroot & goats’ cheese; browned butter and crispy sage sauce
WEEK 8: Side dishes 1 rosemary & garlic-stuffed hasselback potatoes; French beans with confit onions
WEEK 9: Side dishes 2 smoky cauliflower cheese, zingy Thai salad
WEEK 10: Main courses 1 seafood risotto; stuffed chicken ballotine
WEEK 11: Main courses 2 Thai green curry; Teriyaki salmon
WEEK 12: Main courses 3 baked fresh gnocchi in a reduced herb and tomato sauce; pork in a creamy apple & cider sauce
WEEK 13: Desserts 1 mocha pavlova; sticky apple and cinnamon pudding with vanilla custard
WEEK 14: Desserts 2 chocolate and mango entremets with biscuit tuiles and pineapple salsa
WEEK 15: Patisserie laminated pastry, choux pastry, spiced savoury shortcrust pastry
WEEK 16: Canapés and party food 1 gougères filled with mushroom duxelles; aubergine pakoras with tamarind sauce; smoked butternut squash hummus
WEEK 17: Canapés and party food 2 sticky pomegranate and harissa lamb bonbons; onion and spinach bhaji tartlets; luxury sausage rolls
WEEK 18: Confections: chocolate truffles; salted maple fudge; ruby chocolate and passionfruit posset cups
Course dates
This 18-week course will start in January 2026 and will end during the Autumn Term of Upper 6. Each cooking session is on a Monday evening from 4.30pm until about 7pm. Food will be provided for the girls prior to each session. The proposed dates (tbc) are:
°C ULINARY ARTS
5-8pm, Monday evenings
January 2026: 12th, 19th and 26th
February 2026: 2nd and 23rd
March 2026: 2nd and 9th
April 2026: 27th
May 2026: 11th
June 2026: 8th, 15th and 22nd
September 2026: 14th, 21st and 28th
October 2026: 5th, 12th and 19th
To book
The fee for the course is £750 per Chef. This includes all ingredients and the recipe booklet. The full course fee will be charged at the end of the Autumn Term 2025 bill in advance of the start of the course.
To book your daughter’s place please email: culinaryarts@stcatherines.info
Numbers are restricted to sixteen chefs only, and this will be on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.
Booking deadline: Friday 11th September 2025
St Catherine’s School Station Road, Bramley, Guildford, GU5 0DF
+44(0)1483 899609
admissions@stcatherines.info www.stcatherines.info