There are also courses available for those who just want to make French horns and profiteroles in their spare time. A bakery class will ensure that your house is filled with the smell of old-time baking and you have a cast-iron guarantee that your children will love you more.

As you might guess, a baking course will teach you how to make bread and cakes. However, it is a lot more hands-on than watching Nigella Lawson while eating a jumbo packet of Monster Munch. Your lecturer will be happy to take your questions and give you individual attention, whereas Nigella hardly ever comes through the TV set to give you a one-to-one.

A baking course will be able to solve any problems that you might have with buns that refuse to rise and scones that refuse to drop. Your repertoire will expand past apple tart and microwave cakes and you will learn the mysteries of tortes, tiramisu and fancy gateaux.

More advanced classes will take you through the theory of ingredients and their functions in doughs. This will allow you to be more creative and concoct your own recipes from scratch. You will also learn about the responsibilities of a baker, baking terminology, ingredient use, sanitation and shop safety.

If you like baking so much that you feel the need to ornament your creations, then a cake-decorating course should be next on your agenda. There are a myriad of classes on offer, covering everything from sugar icing to marzipan figurines. The curricula of these courses can be surprisingly detailed and you will discover that serious icers need a lot more than a spatula and a pot of whipped cream.

A typical course will teach you the techniques employed in coating cakes of various shapes and textures. You will be introduced to a range of piping tubes and learn how to use them for piped borders, line work and lettering. Aesthetics is paramount in cake decoration and a course will teach you how to colour co-ordinate your cakes and how to theme designs.

If you don't want to waste your talents on your friends and family, then you should bear in mind that cake decorating can be a career in its own right. A good decorator can find both full and part-time employment in the bakery industry and you could also consider hiring yourself out for occasions such as weddings and birthdays.