Curious and clever cooks meet on our forum

Across the internet, one of the best ways to get a personalised response to a tricky question is on forums. These are places where curious people hungry for knowledge hang out to ask or answer even the most difficult of questions. When we opened our online Cooking School a few months ago, we set up our own Yuppiechef forum where our students could go to troubleshoot their cooking and baking. We have since opened it up to our wider community, inviting all our smart foodie friends to come and share their knowledge.

Last week, we decided to run a little competition to spread the news of our forums, where our favourite question and our favourite answer would each win a R500 Yuppiechef voucher. From people exchanging recipes and long, multi-part answers to some really thought provoking questions, we had quite a response. To say we’re chuffed as chips to be hanging out with such bright minds is an understatement.

And without further ado, here are the winners of our little competition, and a couple of honorary mentions.

Best question – yeast in bread making

Penny van Vreden asked a question about yeast and bread baking, which neatly highlighted the exact problem she was having making it easier for Mike Gouws to give her an answer that was on point. Penny clearly thought so too, marking the question as resolved. Great question, Penny!

Best answer – cracked cakes

Nazneen Sadik asked a question about why her cakes were cracking, and Miriam Fakir came back with a seven part answer, troubleshooting several possible reasons for the problem, along with solutions for all of them. Thank you Miriam – that is a most helpful answer.

Special mentions

And of course, we couldn’t go without a couple of special mentions. Vickie Gibson asked for some help making pastry shells after trying everything, and Tandy Sinclair came back with a great short answer which should help all her problems – it goes to show, you don’t have to be the wordiest to be helpful.

Lastly, Nonceba Lushaba asked about using ground almonds as a replacement for almond flour, opening up the floor for a discussion on how to make nut flours. Sometimes the best questions are those that stimulate the best discussions.

So there you have it, folks. Keep asking, answering and being curious cooks  – you never know who’s watching and feeling generous. Oh, and Penny van Vreden, Miriam Fakir, Tandy Sinclair and Nonceba Lushaba can email [email protected], so we can arrange those vouchers.