With a bank holiday on the horizon, HANNAH BRYAN brushes up on her barbecuing skills.

LONG gone are the days where barbecuing was just throwing a few sausages and burgers on to the grill and cracking open a beer as they sizzle away.

No doubt the beer element is still very much there but with the popularity of barbecue restaurants on the rise, barbecuing has become more of an art form now than ever before.

From worldwide competitions to gadgets allowing those cooking on the barbecue to set the temperature, more and more people are immersing themselves in the world of barbecuing and now, thanks to Cooks, The Carlton School of Food, visitors can learn how to master the art for themselves.

The school’s kitchens are a playground for foodies, offering the best cooking equipment in a traditional kitchen setting in the original kitchens of Carlton Towers, near Selby.

The school aims to bring the best tutors in for the courses they run, which range from artisan bread making to learning how to make the perfect Sunday lunch, and the barbecue course was no different.

The tutor for the “We Bring Your Fire” course was Andy Annat, three-times barbecue champion in the UK and World Championship finalist, who runs through everything you need to know about barbecuing.

The course begins in the kitchen with a demonstration on how to cut a leg of pork, before making a barbecue sauce under Andy’s guidance and then a rub to cook the meat in.

Everything participants make on the course they get to take home, and the homemade barbecue sauce is said to last up to two months in the fridge.

Weather permitting; all of the cooking is, of course, done outside in the walled garden of the school, which provides the ideal setting for a barbecue in the sunshine.

Three barbecues were fired up during the course and then we began to prep more meat outside.

First up were beer can chickens, which looked fantastic when they were finished, sitting up on the beer cans, a lovely golden colour from our homemade rub.

Several kinds of fish were also prepped on soaked wooden boards, some of which had been smoked in a variety of flavours, including cherry.

Dirty steaks were next on the agenda where Andy threw the steaks straight on to the coals of the barbecue.

Bashing off the rogue pieces of charcoal when they were done might not be for everyone but the steaks were cooked to perfection and the smoky flavour from the flames ran through them beautifully.

But barbecuing doesn’t begin and end with just meat and fish. Andy has also perfected cooking Yorkshire puddings and chocolate and pistachio brownies on the barbie; a sure fire way of impressing guests at your next barbecue.

To find out more about Cooks and to view the courses they offer, visit cooksatcarlton.co.uk