Create your own perfect at home food festival

As spring is slowly moving into summer, many of us just can’t wait to enjoy some outdoor cooking, dining and celebrating again. Whether the outdoor meals we are daydreaming about come in the form of picnics in the park, BBQs with family and friends or food markets and festivals; they all have one thing in common – great food.

While it may be a little while off yet until we are able to enjoy big public events celebrating all things food, there’s still plenty of ways we can bring some of that summer food magic into our lives.

To celebrate the launch of our new cookbook ‘Cooking with Maple, Naturally’ we are bringing you our very own Maple from Canada Online Food Festival on Friday 29th May.

To help you get you in the mood, here’s some of our top tips for getting festival-ready at home.

Set the scene

Whether indoors or outdoors, why not spend some time making your own unique festival atmosphere and get creative with the decorations. Dedicate different areas of your garden or house to the festival; you could decorate with lights, cushions, bunting, balloons and anything else you can think of to help get festival-ready!

Get family and friends involved

A festival wouldn’t be the same without good company so get the whole household involved, or invite friends and family remotely! You could assign everyone different dishes to cook, make a festival playlist and connect with loved ones through video call to share the experience.

All about the food

Now that you have created your festival atmosphere and invited your guests, let’s turn our attention to the star of the show – the food.

If you can venture outside to cook and eat your food now is the perfect time to do so and get creative with the food you are serving. Why not create a fully international menu or perhaps different food sampling boards or theme your food after music you enjoy. It’s only your imagination that sets the limits.

To help you get inspired this is what our chef ambassadors will be cooking up from their kitchen to yours.

The most important meal of the day

Kicking off the festival at 10am, Great British Bake Off star Manon Lagréve demos how to cook the ultimate brunch dish, maple and vanilla French toast with bananas.

Bring in the little bakers

Looking to keep kids entertained during lockdown? Maple from Canada has got you covered with the 11am slot, hosted by author, food stylist and blogger Georgie Hayden, who will show you how to create an iced maple lemon cake, with the help of her own little chef.

How does your garden grow?

James Golding, of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts (RACA) will be serving up a lunch of pan-fried maple salmon, paired with a selection of home-grown vegetables from his garden. Lunch will be served from 12:30pm.

Afternoon tea

For your 2pm afternoon sweet treat, award-winning chocolatier William Curley is hosting a cook-along so festival-at-home goers can recreate a delicious maple, fig and frangipane tart.

Alight your senses

Samantha Evans and Shauna Guinn, co-founders of Hang Fire Southern Kitchen will be kicking off the weekend at 4pm with this delicious sweet spiced roast beef with maple chickpea mash.

Get into the festival spirit by taking a look at these delicious maple recipes, pre-order your digital copy of ‘Cooking with Maple, Naturally’ and be sure to join us on our social media channels on the 29^th May for our first ever virtual Maple from Canada Online Food Festival.