Cookalong is one of the jewels in the Pennine Mencap crown. We choose a brand-new recipe every week, distribute the ingredients to our service users and broadcast us making the recipe every week.

We broadcast at 11 am every Friday morning, and Elliot, Chairman and Director is the man in front of the camera narrating and cooking the week’s recipe. We make everything from gazpacho, sushi, Caribbean sweet potato curry, a “Big Mac” fakeaway and much, much more. Our recipes are taken from around the world, with the aim of introducing our Service Users to cuisines and cultures they may not have otherwise sampled.

Furthermore, we invite a Service User to join us as a ‘Guest Chef’ every week, where they appear on the Facebook livestream with Elliot to cook together. Cookalong is greatly important to Pennine Mencap and our Service Users as it teaches essential, independent cooking skills as well as all-important confidence building.