Cooking, like kissing, is all about confidence. So it comes as no surprise to read of student Bee Patel’s shock and horror upon finding that she’s struggling to contemplate a return to the kitchen after failing her pastry exam at the London branch of the famed Le Cordon Bleu Cookery School.

I think I’d be equally upset if I’d shelled out the £40,000 fees she parted with, though her dream of becoming a Michelin-starred chef somewhat falters if she can’t cope with being told her lemon tart didn’t make the grade. Perhaps the teachers there are particularly harsh: in 2008, police were called and a student had to be tasered after threatening to kill himself with a kitchen knife after learning he had failed an exam at what is one of the world’s most prestigious cookery schools. It appears to be a place where aspirations and dreams can be punctured and can fall like twice-baked soufflés.

A commercial kitchen is the epitome of tough love. There’s not too much sympathy if you struggle with the rigours and regularity of a 14-hour day, pressure from your fellow chefs and the immediate judgment of your efforts by the paying customer. It’s an environment that can never be recreated at any cookery school or college and learning to cook has very little to do with working in busy kitchen.

Thankfully, the majority of students who attend my cookery school have no such ambitions: they invariably want to cook nice food for their family and friends, to try new techniques and learn a skill that will last a lifetime, with recipes that can be recreated in the comfort of their own home. However, as well as imparting knowledge - and the odd glass of wine - the whole ethos of the lessons I give involve instilling confidence in students.

Bona fide chef legend, Fergus Henderson, of the feted St John Restaurant, states in the foreword of his culinary bible Nose to Tail Cooking: “Do not be afraid of cooking as your ingredients will know and misbehave. Enjoy your cooking and the food will behave; moreover it will pass your pleasure on to those who eat it.” I know what he means. In my early days I failed miserably on three occasions to cook a poached egg for the owner of the hotel in which I was working – it was a longed-for job in a prestigious kitchen where it was reasonable to assume the chefs could poach an egg. In my desperation and nervousness to impress I seemed to have lost the ability to do something I’d done a thousand times before. My time in that kitchen there didn’t go well. Nervousness is not an ingredient you want in your larder.

Practice makes perfect and there’s no such thing as an innate ability to cook. No matter how many times a glossy Sunday supplement tells you otherwise, a chef isn’t an artist, they’re cooks following a simple set of procedures using tried and tested measurements and recipes. As the saying goes the more you try, the more successful you become. If you want to make a perfect lemon tart, make them every day for seven days. I guarantee that a week from now, you’ll pass any critique with flying colours.