Cookery classes online with celebrity Chef Shane

- Michelle Taite -

Celebrity Chef Shane Smith has launched his very own online cookery school, realising a major personal ambition. The Lavey man is a fantastic baker and pastry chef who has been working in the industry for the past 25 years. Opening his own cooking school was always a dream for Shane. However, this year he finally made it a reality.

“I’ve been hounded by so many people in a really good way asking me when I was going to be doing classes. I have been toying with the idea for a lot of years and the time was just never right so, I suppose, I just bit the bullet at the beginning of this year and started looking into it.”

Shane opened the school last month and has already seen a huge interest. “It’s proving really popular. I’ll teach for as long as I can once people are interested in baking.”

The school will cater for all ages and abilities, with specific classes designated to different levels of knowledge. Students will learn everything from the basics of baking, to more technical skills, enabling them to cook up their own storm.

To date, all Shane's classes have been live. Those who partake have been encouraged to get involved and ask questions to get as much out of the class as they can. Each class is recorded and given to each member to review as they need.

“The one thing about the classes, which has been a huge learning curve for me, is seeing what people want. A lot of people like just to sit back and watch the class. Then they’ll watch the class back at their own pace. I will be building solely self pace classes so people can purchase them and bake at their own pace.”

The chef, who is also one of the Celt's resident chefs, is looking forward to Halloween.

“I’m in full Halloween mode at the moment. There’s pumpkins and there’s fake cobwebs everywhere you look here so I’m flat out,” says Shane enthusiastically.

Halloween baking camp

“Something that I’m really excited about that’s coming up for the October midterm break is my first baking camp. That is going to be aimed at young bakers that are off for the Halloween break and is going to be run over a seven-day period.”

The camp will run from October 31 to November 6 during which mini bakers will learn how to create many fantastic dishes through both live and pre recorded classes.

Shane has always loved sharing his passion with others, attempting to pique their interest and spread his wealth of knowledge.

“The number one thing for me during Covid and pre-Covid has been sharing all my recipes and even inspiring people to get baking and take out the fear of baking as well."

An ebook has also been made available on Shane’s website, which features Halloween-themed recipes.

“I’ve just released my first Halloween Ebook, which has 10 of my favourite Halloween recipes and that’s another thing that’s going really well. People love to bake, especially with their kids at home at Halloween.”

Shane’s students are not the only ones who have been learning over the last number of weeks, as the celebrity chef is scrubbing up on his IT skills.

"In this day and age, a lot of things have moved online. From having worked in a kitchen for the last 25 years, to sitting behind a laptop and doing all this side of things has been a big learning curve," he reveals.

It was love at first bite for the celebrity chef, having entered the baking world after seeing his mother and two grannies whipping up delicious dishes in their kitchen.

“My mum was always baking at home and so were both my grandmothers so I always subconsciously had been taking that in, but I knew from the age of about 15 that I wanted to be involved with food in some way. It all just snowballed from there.

"I started when I was 16 working in kitchens in Cavan here and I got a weekend job in the Kilmore and it went from that to then going to college in Killybegs and then I finished my degree in GMIT and yeah I’m 25 years now in the food business!"