Do you love baking delicious treats? Want to learn top cooking tips and tricks, from the best? Celebrity baker, Jo Wheatley will be talking about her first book for baking lovers at Wivenhoe House for this year’s Essex Book Festival.

From cooking the perfect sticky toffee pudding to mouth-watering savoury pies, Jo showcases over 100 recipes in A Passion for Baking, which is available exclusively at Sainsbury’s. After winning the nation’s most watched baking competition in 2011, Jo now runs her own successful cookery school from her kitchen in Essex, sharing her talent and ideas with others.

Join her at the four-star luxury country house hotel at the University of Essex’s Colchester Campus, on Monday 18 March, 7pm where Jo will talk about her new book and provide a demonstration of some of her home-baked treats. Audience members will also have the chance to buy A Passion for Baking and have it signed by Jo herself.

The audience can enjoy an early dinner in the brasserie at Wivenhoe House before the event. Book a table to arrive between 5pm and 6pm and choose a main course and a glass of wine or non-alcoholic drink for £15. This must be pre-booked through the hotel telephone 01206 863666.

This event will replace the previous Essex Book Festival event by Atul Kochhar, who due to work commitments is no longer able to be part of the 2013 Essex Book Festival.

Information about all the events taking place during the Festival can be found on the Essex Book Festival website at: www.essexbookfestival.org.uk, or you can pick a brochure up at your local library.

Notes to Editors

For more information about University events for the Essex Book Festival contact the University of Essex Communications Office, telephone: 01206 874471, e-mail: comms@essex.ac.uk.

High resolution pictures can be downloaded at: www.flickr.com/photos/universityofessex/sets/72157632420095989. Press contacts can be viewed on the press section of the Essex Book Festival website, at: www.essexbookfestival.org.uk/press/author-download.

About Wivenhoe House: Once painted by Constable, the newly restored Grade II listed eighteenth- century country house includes 16 bedrooms, most of them period suites, the dining room which is the hotel’s signature restaurant, and elegant public rooms. The new garden wing is home to a further 24 bedrooms, a brasserie for up to 120 diners plus additional meeting and function rooms, all equipped with the latest technology. The hotel has recently been awarded four stars by the AA and two rosettes for the fine-dining restaurant, Signatures. For more information, visit: www.wivenhoehouse.co.uk.