Hi, I'm Palesa.
I'm a self-taught baker, home cook and recipe developer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Flour & Flame Kitchen is where I share the food I actually cook for my family — recipes tested (and re-tested) until they work in a real kitchen, on a real weeknight, without any drama.
I believe good food doesn't need to be complicated to be extraordinary. Everything you'll find here uses ingredients you can buy at your local shop, techniques you can learn in an afternoon, and instructions that don't assume you already know what a French three-fold looks like.
Say helloHow Flour & Flame started
- 142014
The notebook
I started writing every recipe I tested into a battered brown Moleskine — my grandmother's malva pudding, my mother's chicken curry, my own experiments with sourdough. I still cook from that notebook.
- 192019
The first cake order
A friend asked me to bake a three-tier chocolate cake for her sister's wedding. I said yes before I'd figured out how. It sold thirty-two more cakes in the six months that followed.
- 232023
Catering, quietly
Flour & Flame Catering opened out of my home kitchen in Melville, Johannesburg — small events only, always personal, always cooked from scratch that morning.
- 262026
This little corner of the internet
Every recipe I've tested, every tip I've learned, and every story worth telling — finally in one place, for anyone who wants to cook along.
Cook along with me
Every recipe on this site has been tested at least three times in my own kitchen. If it's here, it works — and I'd love to see you make it.
Browse the recipe archive