Prue Leith Academy | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Last night’s two-hour episode was a bundle of nerves for both the Top 4 finalists as well as for MasterChef SA fans, with difficult food challenges. With Ian Young and Philippa Robinson sent home, Sipho Mdlankomo and Roxi Wardman will be fighting each other for the Top slot. The programme was divided in two halves, filmed on two different days.

Cake Challenge

The Top 4 were to bake a cake ‘fit for a queen‘ in the first hour, it not being known initially that a Finalist would be eliminated in each half. Roxi was happy, desserts and cakes being her forté. Pastry Chef Lorraine Meaney from the Cape Grace hotel, a guest in Season 1, joined the kitchen, and set the challenge of a Cardamom Lemon Chocolate gâteau. Chef Lorraine was the Head Pastry Chef Continue reading →

Last night Leandri van der Wat was the star of episode 23, highly praised by Chef Prue Leith, an icon of South African cooking and a Michelin star and multi-award winning chef in the United Kingdom.

Having returned to the MasterChef SA kitchen at Nederburg after three episodes were based in Ethiopia and one in Johannesburg, the six Finalists were invited to join ‘culinary royalty‘ and ‘living legend’ Prue Leith and the three judges Benny Masekwameng, Pete Goffe-Wood, and Andrew Atkinson to enjoy a South African ‘tee en koek’, which included melktert, koeksisters, and vetkoek with mince. Chef Prue was introduced as having two cooking academies, one of them being the Prue Leith Academy in Pretoria; a catering company; a Michelin star restaurant; cooking shows on television; cookbook writer, of which one is a ‘cookery bible‘; and recipient of the Member and later Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was born and bred in South Africa, but has lived in the UK for over 60 years. She said that she serves on the Board of Safeway, Whitbread, and the Orient Express hotel group (which owns the Mount Continue reading →