A few months back to celebrate the upcoming International Food Festival of Qatar, I visited a cooking class at the Cookery School in London to learn to prepare some delicious middle eastern dishes. The class was in partnership with Visit Qatar and Qatar Airways and this was the reason I visited gorgeous Doha last week! I wanted to share a bit about the experience and my favorite recipe from the day I became a master chef 🙂It always amazes me how super EASY real chefs make cooking look. I watch so carefully and then totally cannot understand how I manage to screw up even the easiest tasks! Maybe practice really does make perfect…BRB headed back to the kitchen!  One of the best tips I learned on this day was when you’re making bread from scratch, if the dough feels too sticky or moist, don’t just keep adding more flour! It takes about 20 minutes for it to be absorbed so if you add a bit more…leave it at that! Many people (talking about myself here!) add flour and when you don’t instantly notice a difference, continue to add, and add…leaving you with a super dry bread.   During our class, we created a perfect full menu with mezze and flat bread, lamb tagine with rice, semolina cake and of course, baklava! After all the prepping and cooking, our kitchen was transformed into a dining area where we enjoyed the tasty meal.  My favorites of the day, to not only prepare but also to eat, were the flat breads and the baklava. Both dishes were ones I had always believed to be too complex or difficult for me to make but after trying firsthand, I’ll definitely be repeating! I’ll share the baklava recipe below…

The Cookery School in London offers a variety of learning experiences as well as group activities, including bake-off competitions! How fun would this be?!

Stay tuned for all you need to know about Qatar, QIFF and my adventures there!

**In collaboration with Qatar Tourism Authority.