GRANT FELLER enjoys a family cooking break in North Yorkshire

IT LOOKS so easy when Jamie Oliver does it. Hands dusted in flour, furiously kneading away at a lump of dough until its smoothness begs for a little rest before being bunged in the oven.

I mean, how hard is that really? Not hard at all if you're my 11-year-old daughter, Amy.

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Her smile as wide as Jamie's expanding tummy, her hands effortlessly pull, squash and pummel while I give a rather pathetic impression of one of those grandads on the old Generation Game, utterly bemused at the cookery round, ending up with half on the floor, the other half on his trousers.

We're standing in the converted Georgian stables of Swinton Park, an ivy-clad castle hotel set in 200 acres of parkland in the Yorkshire Dales.

In just a few hours we learn everything from how to bone a duck to how to make the perfect risotto.

The infectious energy and good humour of Gilly Robinson (celebrity chef Rosemary Shrager also runs courses here) rather takes the children aback.

"Isn't she going to swear and get cross like Gordon Ramsay, Daddy?" asks Joel, nine. "No, leave that to me darling, " I say.

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The bread is followed by a butternut squash risotto and a delicious Chinese lamb and mushroom stir-fry. Mini-chicken burgers are wolfed down by the children almost as rapidly as the gooey brownies they create themselves while we settle for a slab of orange cake and a much-needed glass of wine.

All that and more in a threehour session that transforms our culinary abilities.

Almost a decade ago, Mark Cunliffe-Lister and his wife Felicity bought back Swinton Park, his ancestral home near Masham, North Yorkshire, sold by the family 25 years earlier.

They turned it into a charming blend of chic, oak-panelled country house and muddywellied family home with numerous reception rooms, squishy sofas, log fires and huge picture windows overlooking lakes and parkland.

The 30 rooms are individually designed on the theme of a Yorkshire town, dale, garden, castle or abbey. One of the five suites is on three circular floors in the turret and has a Victorian rainbath. Our four-poster family room looks out over the lake, the bathroom as big as my lounge.

After the Second World War, two-thirds of the house was used as a study centre for the Conservative Party, and Mark's maternal grandfather Lord "Willie" Whitelaw was a regular visitor. Mark's mother Susan was the one who transformed the four-acre walled garden which supplies much of the hotel's fruit and vegetables.

Eating in Samuel's restaurant is a real treat, with its ornate gold-leaf ceiling, mahogany panelling and open fire. Dishes such as pheasant pressed with quince, rabbit stuffed with apricots or north-coast scallops in a sweetcorn custard show enormous flair.

Venison, rabbit, smoked trout and game all come from the hotel's 20,000-acre estate which stretches from the River Ure in Wensleydale up on to the moorland Dales. The landscape is, by turns, wonderfully stirring and almost forbidding.

We pass the picturesque villages of Fearby and Healey and stomp on to the moors straddling Colsterdale, heading north for Wensleydale. Walking to nearby Masham is a far less gruelling task, though returning might be, considering that it is home to Theakston's brewery.

My excuse for a visit there is that it is educational for the children. Chemistry and all that.

Back at the hotel, pampering awaits the girls in the spa while I'm humiliated at table tennis by Joel. Mind you, after the cookery course, I should be getting used to being shown up by my children by now.

THE KNOWLEDGE:
Swinton Park (01765 680900/www.swintonpark.com) offers a three-night Holiday Heaven break from £245 per night (four sharing), half board.
Offer includes free meals and accommodation for children. Children's cooking courses from £50 per child or private family courses can be arranged from £70pp.

Welcome to Yorkshire: 01765 604625/www.yorkshire.com