This term, Camps Bay High School hosted an Inter-House Cooking Competition: The Bay Cook Off. The Competition was the brain-child of Camps Bay High School’s Head of Consumer Studies, Ms Dineo Samu, who said, “We wanted to give our senior learners an opportunity to show off their skills in the kitchen and so created The Bay Cook Off which was held over three knock-out rounds. Each of the six houses at Camps Bay High School nominated two learners to represent them in teams of two.”

In the first round, the teams from each of the six houses were given the task of icing and decorating a cake that they had made in their own time.  The top three cakes, as judged by a chef representative from the International Hotel School, went through to the next round of the competition.  Making it through to Round 2 of the Competition were: Sbongile Mpofu and Athraa Toefy from Blue House, Jana Steyn and Helena Laubscher from Red House and Tyla Baartman and Isabella Minter from Green House.

For the second round, learners were given a mystery box of ingredients to make lunch. The teams from Blue House and Red House were judged to have made the best lunches so they proceeded to the final round where they went into a head-to-head challenge.  They were given the complicated task of making choux pastry/chocolate eclairs.

Said Samu, “In addition to being given the basic ingredients to make eclairs, the contestants also had to somehow incorporate a mystery box of ingredients which contained instant pudding, chocolate, wafer rolls, Oreo biscuits and raspberries. They had an hour and twenty minutes to plan, execute and make their dishes and the competition was very tough – Choux pastry is not easy to make.”

The winners of the first ever The Bay Cook Off were announced at a special assembly at the school where the school watched a video of the journey the finalists took to get where they were.

Congratulations to Grade 11 learners, Sbongile Mpofu and Athraa Toefy from Blue House who managed to edge past Grade 12 learners, Jana Steyn and Helena Laubscher from Red House, to take the win.

The Final Results of the Competition were:

• 1st Place: Sbongile Mpofu and Athraa Toefy from Blue House
• 2nd Place: Jana Steyn and Helena Laubscher from Red House
• 3rd Place: Tyla Baartman and Isabella Minter from Green House
• 4th Place: Gemma Webb-Linacre and Amonique van Wyk from Orange House
• 5th Place: Neve Ingle and Hallie Meth from Yellow House
• 6th Place: Jensen Smith and Mikaylah Ward from Purple House

The top two teams went home with prizes from the International Hotel School and Banks Kitchen.

Added Samu, “I must take this opportunity to thank our sponsors – the International Hotel School donated Chef’s knives and cake decorating equipment and Banks Kitchen sponsored ice-cream moulds, measuring cups, a silicone mould and silicone piping bags – all essential items in the kitchen of any good chef.”

Concluded Samu, “The first-ever The Bay Cook Off was a huge success and sparked great interest and enthusiasm from all the learners at our school – we are looking forward to making this competition an annual event and making it even bigger and better next year.”