The Food Sauce bloggers pancake day event took place on Sunday evening and was held at the wonderful Avenue Cookery School in Wandsworth town.

Living in north London, I must admit I am absolutely rubbish for branching out to south London however, after reading about the cookery school as well as learning that we would be cooking pasta and making pancakes for the evening, it sounded like an event not to be missed!

The Food Sauce is a fast-growing online platform that uses social media to showcase great products and support independent brands and start-ups. It exists to connect food fans, businesses and bloggers and regularly hosts events to enable lovers of food to connect and share their passion with others.

Sunday was the latest food event from The Food Sauce where approximately 15 bloggers and representatives from food brands came together to try their hand at making tagliatelle and pancakes using products from Superfood Bakery, Cirio Uk, Nothing But plus many more. Diana, owner of The Avenue Cookery School, and her son Richard were wonderful hosts, making everyone feel welcome and relaxed, with their passion, enthusiasm and sense of humour whilst also teaching us all some tricks of the trade in the kitchen.

Richard gave us a lesson on the best way to chop an onion and garlic and we learnt that the sprout in the centre of a garlic clove is called the germ and is good to take out when you’re cooking something quickly as otherwise it can be quite bitter and will end up giving you garlicky breath (usueful tip!)

We each had a station and got cracking with making the pasta sauce and tagliatelle. Chopping the onions and garlic first (skilfully now of course) we covered them with authentic italian chopped tomatoes from Cirio UK and then moved onto using a pasta maker to make the tagliatelle. I’ve always wanted to use a pasta maker so it was good fun and a good arm workout too!

Whilst some of us were cooking the pasta, another group got cracking with making the pancakes using Superfood Bakery’s Morning Dreamers pancakes mix. Made from ancient grains flours and baobab powder these gluten free pancakes are light and airy and delicious dressed in some maple syrup or chocolate spread! Luckily we had both to go on top as well as some amazing ice cream.

Oppo ice cream is one of those products that once you discover wonder how did you live without it before. They sell 100ml ice cream tubs in salted caramel, vanilla, and mint choc chip flavours that amount to less than a hundred calories and are absolutely delicious. Since discovering this product last year I still can’t get enough of it and it’s a perfect choice to have with your pancakes.

Jim Jams spread is another product I discovered at a food festival last year. Think nutella but a healthier version with just as good a taste and there you have Jim Jams. It’s delicious in milkshakes, on toast, from the jar and again perfect for your pancakes. Jim Jams primarily sell jams but also produce chocolate spread in milk chocolate and hazelnut flavours, both amazing, although I think the hazelnut wins for flavour just a little bit.

A new product I came across was Pure Maple Syrup. You need a good maple syrup for pancake day and this does not disappoint. Yes sugar and lemon is tasty but add a good dose of maple syrup and you’ve just made that pancake a whole lot better. The product is produced by Canadians so it’s bound to be good! Another product I hadn’t heard of but offers the perfect alternative to crisps and one of your five a day comes from Nothing But. Offering six different flavours Nothing But produce healthy snack packs of freeze-dried fruits and vegetables which contain nothing but 100% wholesome ingredients. They’re also the perfect ingredient to add to a bowl of porridge or yes you guessed it, pancakes!

One of my favourite products from the night was Willies Cacao. My goodness, if you love chocolate you will LOVE Willie’s Cacao. The story behind how it was made is really interesting and inspiring and learning about the different beans used and the flavours you can get from them. Willie’s description of the hot chocolate he made from his own cocoa using hot water and a little honey is so vivid it just makes me want to go on to his online shop and purchase it straight away. My favourite from the night was the Sambirano gold madagascan dark chocolate (71%) and his Rio Caribe chocolate drops, they will honestly make you look at chocolate in a new way.

For drinks we sampled products from Thor drinks which I first came across at BBC Good Food show and Tg Green Tea. Both super refreshing, low in sugar and using natural ingredients, these are a great choice if you’re wanting an alternative to alcohol. I’d definitely recommend the award winning ginger flavoured thor drink.

Once again another fabulous night from the Food sauce, it’s always such a treat to discover new food products and tonight there was such a wonderful selection of products and definitely ones I would purchase again and again.