FOLLOWING the success of her Humble Pie bakery, café and deli in the centre of Askrigg, Elizabeth Fawcett is breaking new ground, transferring the brand to her very own cookery school, in the market town of Hawes.

Offering full-day, half-day, evening and tailor-made sessions to suit cooks of all ages, the Humble Pie Cookery Kitchen opened this week. Fresh, local ingredients are provided for all the dishes, whether eaten on the premises for lunch or taken home to share.

"All you need to bring is yourself," said Elizabeth, who has lived in Wensleydale since she was nine. “Hawes is such a lovely, lively town, with lots of independent shops, pubs, cafés and businesses and I’m really looking forward to being part of that culture for the first time."

She ran the Askrigg venture for five years from 1999, and for another two years with youngest daughter, Betty, from 2017, but nobody predicted how busy it would become.

Takeaway meals, cakes, scones, quiches, soups, salads and pastries, all of which can now be replicated in the "school", poured forth from the tiny kitchen.

With a dedicated staff, they even provided an impromptu home-delivery service for elderly residents in Askrigg who couldn’t get out through infirmity, bad weather or just bad luck.

“We loved it. It was a wonderful time but it was exhausting. This new venture is a way of helping people produce what we produced, and giving them a real sense of achievement,” said Elizabeth, who attributes her love of good food to her late mum, Margaret Baker. Her family meals cooked on the Aga at their home in Stalling Busk were legendary.

All the ingredients for the cookery school, situated over Bear Cottage Interiors at the west end of Hawes Market Place, will be locally-sourced wherever possible, as they were when she started out more than 20 years ago. A full day’s tuition from 10am to 4.30pm starts with coffee, fresh scones and, Elizabeth’s stock-in-trade, a good chat, continues with lunch, and ends with tea, cake and more chat, and a two-course dinner for two to take home. It costs £100. A half-day, 9.30am to 1.30pm, is £60 and includes welcoming coffee and scones (again) and ends with a light lunch. The prices include all ingredients.

At the open day on Saturday one visitor suggested a short course for men who live alone, who have previously depended on wives or partners for meals, and who would welcome the company as well as the learning experience.

“I’m open to ideas, and can make the sessions very flexible to suit everyone,” says Elizabeth, who has produced 10 cookery sessions for the BBC’s Countryfile series, and an illustrated recipe book inspired by the programme, Rambler’s Rewards - Cooking from Coast to Coast, with her friend Pat Kirkbride.

See www.humblepieyorkshire.co.uk or contact info@humblepieyorkshire.co.uk for details of all courses, to book or suggest a course.