Going back to school can be great fun, particularly when the teacher is an experienced demonstrator with loads of innovative ideas that can transform a dinner party into a festive feast. I attended a cookery day school, at Denman College, Marcham, last weekend and returned home fired with enthusiasm and full of good food.

Denman College was founded by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes in 1948. This Georgian mansion, set in 17 acres of grounds, now opens its doors to everyone — men, women, members and even non-members of the WI — who arrive from all over the country to take part in the many courses the college offers.

The course I attended, The Seasonal Dinner Party, was run by the award-winning chef Rachel Green, who showed us how to add a seasonal sparkle to festive fare.

Coming from 14 generations of Linconshire farmers, Rachel is a committed ambassador for British produce and renowned for her lively exuberance. Such was her enthusiasm that by the end of the day everyone was convinced that British was best and fired up to begin cooking some of her recipes as soon as they got home.

One of the great things about a day course like this is that eight foodie enthusiasts meet as strangers and leave as firm friends, having worked together to cook as Rachel cooks, during the hands-on session that followed her demonstrations.

The pièce-de-résistance of the day was Rachel’s Amaretti roulade filled with lashings of cream mixed with mascapone and flavoured with a generous amount Amaretto liqueur.

Like all expert demonstrators, Rachel made it all seem so easy, adding a spoonful of this and a dollop of that with gay abandon as she stirred and whisked her ingredients together. She made it all seem such fun, as indeed it was.

Actually, it was really easy too, as we soon discovered. Even rolling up the roulade at the end, having smothered it with cream and a glorious mix of dried fruit that had been soaked in Madeira and simply oozed with flavour. It was indeed a scrumptious creation.

Rachel began her demonstration by creating delicate filo shells. Bought ready-made from a supermarket these cost a small fortune, but when made at home cost hardly anything. By the time she had filled them with a shredded chicken mixture, flavoured with sweet chilli sauce, lime juice and peanut butter, our mouths were watering.

Our gastric juices continued to work overtime when she magically produced a pea and roasted garlic soup in minutes (see recipe left). By serving this soup in warmed shot glasses and garnishing it with crème fraiche, Rachel transformed a simple dish into a trendy starter that could be served with the canapés at a festive cocktail party.

While her creations followed a written recipe, one of the things that she stressed throughout the day was that recipes should act as a rough guide only.

She pointed out that UK residents cook less at home than cooks in any other European country, yet apparently we buy the most cookery books.

Apparently, despite amassing cookery books, most of us have a working repertoire of just 30 dishes, and seldom stray out of our comfort zone by adapting these dishes according to the ingredients in our larder.

Rachel suggested that although cooking was simple, the celebrity chefs made things far too complicated. She said: “I watched a celebrity chef the other day and was amazed to find he had used 23 ingredients to make a shepherd’s pie.

“The other thing people worry about when serving a meal for friends is whether they will live up to their friend’s expectations.”

Rachel believes that staging a dinner party should be a joyful thing. “The cook should not be shut away in the kitchen when the guests arrive, but out there with them enjoying a well-earned glass of wine. It’s all about time management actually. Get that right and everything else falls into place,”

Rachel pointed out that her beautiful roulade could be made in advance and frozen. So can the soup. The little filo shells can be cooked in advance too.

Even her creamed Savoy cabbage, flavoured with cardamom seeds and orange juice, can be cooked ahead of time, then reheated just before dinner is ready. She had created this cabbage dish as a base for the sliced breast of pheasant and, in so doing, turned a humble vegetable into a magnificent festive dish.

We all left clutching our roulades, a pan-fried smoked salmon and pancetta spinach salad, and a herb-crusted rack of lamb with a minted pea and shallot sauce that we’d cooked earlier. These dishes are not all we took home, however. Each one of us also left filled with a new found confidence.

For further information about the cookery courses held at Denman College email:info@denman.org.uk or telephone 01865 391991.