Cooking Schools & Classes
It’s easy to be inspired by the amazing food you’ll eat during any visit to Victoria’s Heartland. So much so, you might want to find out more about how to achieve the same results yourself or learn more about the incredible produce that is grown here. Plan ahead and book a cooking class to make the most of your time in the region.
Class culture
At Blampied, Village Dreaming is both a permaculture farm and cooking school that shares the techniques and secrets of Italian cooking. Run by Mara Ripani, who’s spent years sowing gardens, making delicious food and learning about sustainable agriculture, this is an opportunity for people to discover a little or a lot. Learn how to bake sourdough bread or ferment, preserve and dry fruit and vegetables, organise a tour or Orto farm, or book a private cooking class. There are even rooms available in the hand-built straw and clay farmhouse for those who’d like to stay.
At Alla Wolf-Tasker’s Dairy Flat Farm in Musk, just outside Daylesford, the bakers run regular sourdough classes, where participants learn all about making slow-ferment baguettes and loaves. Everyone who takes part in the class also gets a private tour or the vineyard, orchard, olive grove and herb and vegetable gardens that supply produce to the Lake House kitchens.
Head to Truffle Treasures near Spargo Creek for interactive hunts and cooking classes. Join Willow the truffle dog on a hunt for black truffles in the grove of oaks then head to the kitchen where chef Beck Davern leads a class in creating a range of dishes, each one featuring the luxury ingredient.
There are different truffles on offer at Sisko Chocolate in Trentham, where guests learn how to make ganache and roll their own chocolate truffles. Once you’ve decorated them, you get to take them home. How delicious.
Explore our Cooking Schools
Beekeeping
Bees are integral to the health of our crops and, indeed, the entire planet, so ensuring they have somewhere to live and people to take care of them is very important. Learn all about hive set-up and caretaking of the bees at a Dairy Flat Farm’s class with Dan the Bee Man.
Cheesemaking
When Frenchman Ivan Larcher set up Long Paddock Cheeses in The Mill Castlemaine, he also created a state-of-the-art facility where both enthusiasts and professionals can learn or improve their cheesemaking skills. Learn how to make aged cheese, from how to choose the best milk to moulding the finished product. You’ll end the day with a tasting of Long Paddock cheeses and Boomtown Wines and get to take home the two types of cheeses you made. There is also a class for those who may be contemplating becoming professional cheesemakers, with more advanced classes to be introduced.
Truffle Hunting
There are experiences available in both summer and winter at Wattle Flat’s Black Cat Truffles. Book for an hour-long afternoon truffle hunt and add on six-course degustation lunch if you want to taste the best of these fungi used by chef Liam Downes.
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