Afrikaans kids baking competition show, Koekedoortjie, from Homebrew Films, kicks off on kykNET filled with baking flour, tears and triumphs, real on-set snow and even a white owl.

Koekedoortjie, the diminutive spin-off of the baking show Koekedoor featuring Afrikaans kids, kicks off this evening on kykNET (DStv 144) at 20:00 themed around a winter wonderland dreamscape and filled with baking flour, tears and triumphs, real TV production snow that's the same type used by Game of Thrones - and even a perched, real-life white owl.

Koekedoortjie as a kids baking show spin-off follows on from last year's brilliant first season of Kokkedoortjie that was a kids version of the Afrikaans food competition show Kokkedoor, all produced by Homebrew Films.

In Koekedoortjie, focused on baking, 10 Afrikaans children from across South Africa between the ages of 10 and 13 will compete in the magical kitchen studio - with a parent looking on - to see who's the country's top junior baker.

Auditions took place in August 2017 with the show that filmed an episode per day during the school holidays in September and October last year. The Koekedoortjie first prize is a family holiday for a week to Abu Dhabi and access to 3 theme parks.

The presenters and judges are Mari-Louis Guy and Nic van Wyk - the only two of the show's crew of about 65 people who are seen on screen. "What the kids manage to accomplish is amazing," said Nic van Wyk.

The 10 contestants are Anmi Esbach (11) from Hartebeespoort, Wicus van Deventer (11) from Prieska, Nix Korf (12) from Centurion, Danika Botes (12) from Krugersdorp, Carla Botha (13) from De Hoop, Tanique van der Walt (10) from Hermanus and Anica Skeepers (11) from Centurion; as well as Elsje-Mari Louw (12) from Paarl, Evan Maritz (13) from Pretoria en Minay Vermaak (11) from Pretoria.

The multitude of entries were narrowed down to 300 shortlisted applications who all underwent baking auditions, and from there the 10 kids were chosen.

Koekedoortjie was filmed in the same studio at Atlantic Studios in Milnerton, Cape Town, where kykNET series like Suidooster and Kwêla are filmed. The baking show has 13 half hour episodes, with Sanet Olivier who is once again the director and who was also behind the lens for Koekedoortjie's sister shows.

Editing started in February - a gargantuan task given that seven cameras filmed 60 hours of footage per episode that needed to be edited down to just 22 minutes per episode.

"Koekedoortjie is different from other kids baking shows," said Paul Venter, executive producer, when TVwithThinus last month went on a on-set guided tour of Koekedoortjie.

"One of the dimensions we add are the parents. They have 10 minutes to discuss, and then the parent has to come and sit on the sidelines and watch. Then when the kids have to continue on their own, it's like a soap to see how the mom tries to get the child's attention. And from around the 3 or 4th episode the kids don't want the parents there and says things like 'My mom is irritating me, I just want to bake!"

"We also can't stop filming, you can't start over - if someone forgets to switch on the oven it's sad. You can't start over because it's a competition, there are big prizes up for grabs."

For the set design and look and feel of Koekedoortjie this season the producers went for a "dreamy" winter theme - complete with a snow machine and real TV production snow that's the same version as used by the fantasy drama series Game of Thrones - to create somewhat of a "winter wonderland".

"The kids arrive through snow - as if it's midnight - and they enter the kitchen and get a make-a-wish dandelion and that's the thing they have to hand back if they fall out. Of course the big wish is the dream prize," said Paul Venter.

"Interestingly, 80% of the Afrikaans kids are home-schooled kids. It's something we're seeing more and more. And for some of them to enter for Koekedoortjie was part of a home school project."

"The other thing is that all of the kids are under 16, so the camera can only roll for 6 hours per day. They're only allowed to 'work' for 6 hours per day."

"It limits us somewhat in terms of the various baking challenges, since when you start doing bigger challenges - bakes must expand, cakes must cool down - we had to select challenges where you're baking time never exceeds an hour and a half, except for the final that went a bit longer. The laws regarding minors working in TV are extremely strict," said Paul Venter.

Asked about the owl, Sanet Olivier says it took "a tremendous amount of patience. For just the opening theme and to get the owl in there took a whole day of shooting".

"In Kokkedoortjie we had the chick, and in children's tales there's often the wise old owl looking at everything, so a subtle change. And the snow is like icing sugar. The snow isn't to make it a 'cold world', it's to help create a feeling that you're entering a baking world."

"You get snow that's specifically just for close-ups, it glistens; then you get snow that's for far-off, you can play a bit more by given it different textures; and a 'wetter' one; the one where you slide. In the evenings after filming the challenges, we shot the pretties. So then we filmed the title sequence - at the end of the baking day when the kids are gone," said Sanet Olivier.

"We literally had 5 people standing on little ladders on the sides of a door with the snow machine blowing. And it had to have a natural look - it had to fall from the middle top downwards. It took a while to figure out, but we did."

2017's (GREATEST) GUILTY PLEASURES. Here's the top 5 TV shows that were so great this year, that I literally couldn't wait to watch the next episode.

The bane (and more positively, the delight) of a TV critic's existence is that you get to watch a lot of television. A lot of television.

Not everything is great, not everything is average, and there's always just more and more and more TV watching homework.

But once in a while a true TV gem comes across your part and then it's actually not just work, but also highly enjoyable to watch.

2017 delivered some great shows, and also some guilty pleasures that's not really great, but were still so absorbing and fascinating that I personally couldn't stop watching them.

Surprisingly, two of the shows that I thought showed some of the very best TV work of 2017 were local South African shows, and cooking shows - and I don't usually have a specific personal liking for either.

The fact that both these shows were magnificently produced, in a genre that I didn't expect, and had me enthralled, says a lot of the exceptional work that was put in by the production companies to create world-class television shows.

Here's the top 5 shows of 2017 that honestly made me personally count the days until the next episode:

JAN (Showmax, VIA, DStv 147)

My best new show of 2017 on South African television came as a complete and stunning surprise – the arrestingly beautiful fly-on-the-wall docuseries profiling South Africa’s Michelin-star chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen at his Nice restaurant in France and beyond.

Visually akin to the Netflix series Chef’s Table, JAN is by far the most breath-takingly beautiful show that was seen on SA television in 2017.

Co-produced and available on Naspers' streaming service Showmax, the other surprise was its linear TV channel partner, VIA (DStv 147) where JAN definitely ranks as the channel's most sumptuously shot show ever among a channel offering of more down-to-earth lifestyle shows.

Produced by Brainwave productions and boasting the best production values and stellar attention to detail, lighting, camerawork, editing and a casting coup in terms of Jan who finally relented to being filmed, the show is a mesmerisingly beautiful and immersive work of art.

JAN is in Afrikaans, English, French and Italian but has English subtitles making it universally watchable.

Koekedoortjie (kykNET, DStv 144)

If cum laude master class film students did a vanity project, Koekedoortjie would be it. 

Totally unexpected, this Afrikaans spin-off version for kids of the Afrikaans baking show Koekedoor was painful to watch – painful due to the delicate filming finesse and the production's attention to detail that made this show an utter wonder to behold.

It was, unexpectedly, my best TV show of 2017 (until JAN came along). 

Magical with a beautiful set, superb lighting, camera work, music and editing and filmed in Cape Town by Homebrew Films, the meticulously crafted show is not just enjoyable – it's technically as far as TV goes, close to flawless. 

It's a total TV jewel, that, like Harry Potter, shouldn't be able to exist and be do-able in the South African TV universe, yet does.

The Wedding Bashers (M-Net, DStv 101)

Viewers came for the weddings but stayed for the cringe (and the delicious snark). 

The Wedding Bashers on M-Net is yet another show that tops my list of TV for 2017 and that gave no clues that it would become utterly must-watch TV. 

Move along Housewives – the wedding crashers Zavion Kotze, Siba Mtongana, Cindy Nell-Roberts and Denise Zimba were over-the-top wonderful in this locally-produced new show from [SIC] Entertainment.

Filmed over many months so as to wait for when they could all attend and for perfectly suited weddings (the good, the bad, the superhero and the totally ri-di-cu-lous!), you only need to watch one minute to be captivated by the awe-inspiring put-downs and compliments of the judging foursome – especially that real-life wedding planner Zavion Kotze.

Who knew that The Wedding Bashers would turn out great as a local show? Totally 2017's most irresistible guilty pleasure.

By the way, Our Perfect Wedding on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) isn't a new show but if you don't want to be trapped and totally sucked in, don't even watch a minute as the highly addictive show continues to find wedding people you never knew you wanted to sit and stare and shake your head at!

Shadowhunters (Netflix)

Why I'm watching Shadowhunters I don’t know. 

I’m not the demo. But in a post Gossip Girl, post Vampire Diaries world, I need my fantasy show with beautiful young people who are actually werewolves, vampires, fairies, and human-angel demon hunters with a lot of angst. 

And did I mention … they're beautiful.

Literally obsessed, I spent a big chunk of 2017 like that one cat meme typing furiously on the keyboard, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing and waiting for the next episode to drop on Netflix after its weekly broadcast in America. 

Who wants to be a Jedi when you can be someone's Parabatai?

State of America with Kate Bolduan (CNN International, DStv 401)

I'm sure I completely hate this show. In capital HATE letters. 

And yet … yet I watch it … Every. Single. Day. As in every weeknight evening.

Why? Obviously something is wrong with me. Or something has gone wrong with America.

Motor-mouth Kate Bolduan moderates a daily panel around her transparent perspex desk, hardly gives the "panelist" a chance to talk and to discuss the daily dramas of America’s president Donald Trump.

Oh wait – now I know why I'm addicted to this show.

As America's presidency and politics went completely off the rails in 2017 and the White House internal drama turned into the biggest real-life reality show ever, State of America is where I've caught up with the day's "Trump Show" that was and that constantly seems more surreal, unreal and shocking that anything Aaron Sorkin could ever dream up for The West Wing.

By a Friday, Monday on this show (although it gives a daily count-on) seems like months away as Kate and cohorts discuss all the day's lurid headline-grabbing Trump-details.

It is true  trainwreck television, and Kate who is with child has banned the word "pivot" but it is can't-look-away trainwreck television. 

Watch it, but don't say you haven't been warned – you will lose 5 half hours per week and wonder why, but be completely unable to stop. 

kykNET orders first season of Koekedoortjie as an Afrikaans baking show spin-off from Koekedoor for kids between 9 and 13.

kykNET (DStv 144) has ordered a first season of Koekedoortjie, a spin-off version for kids of the Afrikaans baking competition show Koekedoor.

Koekedoortjie, produced by Homebrew Films, is now looking for contestants with kids between the ages of 9 and 13 who can enter by sending an email to koekedoortjie@homebrewfilms.tv or calling 021 422 3452 for more information. Entries close on 25 August.

Koekedoortjie follows on the heels of the diminutive Kokkedoortjie, a cooking competition spin-off from Kokkedoor. Mari-Louis Guy and Nic van Wyk will again be the judges of the new show that will be filmed in Cape Town at Atlantic Studios.

Kokkedoortjie yielded its first winner on Wednesday evening in the show's finale during which Edwin Theron (13) from Worcester was announced as the winner after a final cook-off against Christi Myburgh (14) from Bloemfontein and a "Wonderland"-themed plated meal.

As with Kokkedoortjie, contestants in Koekedoortjie will have to be accompanied by a mom, dad or a grandparent who will serve as chaperone and also serve as baking inspiration and a bake mate in some of the challenges.

Both have to be available between 23 September and 7 October 2017 for filming with auditions for Koekedoortjie that will be taking place in the week of 4 to 7 September.

kykNET's Kokkedoor cooking competition spawns yet another spin-off; entries open for Kokkedoortjie kids version for tweens between 9 and 13.

kykNET's popular amateur cooking show Kokkedoor that spawned a baking spin-off Koekedoor is hatching again: a brand-new spin-off for kids called Kokkedoortjie looking for kids between 9 and 13 to compete and make glorious creations in the kitchen.

Similar to shows like MasterChef that spawned the adorable Junior MasterChef, kykNET has commissioned a new Kokkedoor spin-off that will follow tweens baking and making in the kitchen with this version that is moving from the small Western Cape town of Tulbagh and will be filmed in Cape Town.

Koekedoor judge Mari-Louis Guy will return, along with Kokkedoor chef Nic van Wyk.

With the Kokkedoortjie kids version, a guardian like grandma, mother, grandpa or dad will not only be looking on but also be roped in to help in some of the food preparation challenges.

"Kokkedoortjie is absolutely custom-made for the next generation of young chefs, but we're not forgetting the grown-ups,' Errieda du Toit, Kokkedoor and Kokkedoortjie content producer tells TVwithThinus.

"With this new version we're bringing in a bit of the grown-up to help, but this will be the playpen of children, to literally play with food, to demonstrate the joy of food to viewers, and to make young people excited about making and creating with food," says Errieda du Toit.

"Any child between 9 and 13 can enter for Kokkedoortjie. The child doesn't need to be any kind of 'great chef' or a fantastic food maker. I would recommend that you should enter your child for Kokkedoortjie if your kid shows a healthy interest in food and creating and working with food".

"It will be a wonderful experience for any child interested in food, in a very safe environment. Kids are like sponges, in the two weeks they will soak up and learn more about food than even the grown-ups have in this show," says Errieda du Toit.

"If your child has an interest, enter. Also enter for the right reasons - not to become famous, that's a bonus. It's about stimulating a young brain in an area that they're interested in."

"Kokkedoortjie will be produced in such a way that the grown-up - a parent or grandparent - is incorporated into a part of the show's challenges: advising, coming up with a plan and listening to bounce off ideas."

"Then, once the decisions have been for a particular challenge about this is what we're making, then that child gets access to the most wonderful, fantastic, fantasy kitchen to create and make and play."

"So there's some basic skills that's needed. A child will have to already be able to work with a knife. A child will have to already have experience of being able to fry and cook an egg. Just cooking basics. It's about not being scared to be in a kitchen."

"A lot of safeguards, planning and structure have been built into the kids version that a kid will never tire or be placed under stress. And only one challenge per episode, so Kokkedoortjie won't be like Kokkedoor where the adults are really put through their paces."

"Kokkedoortjie will be a much more calmer process. What we want from the kid contestants in Kokkedoortjie is what we as adults often struggle so much with: to be creative and to fiercely create fearlessly. We are going to tell the children: Yes. You are completely allowed to fully colour outside of the lines!" says Errieda du Toit.  

Parents who want to enter their kids will have to be available for filming between 30 September to 8 October in Cape Town (successful candidates will be provided transport and accommodation for the duration).

People who want to enter can email Liezel Loubser at Homebrewfilms at liezel@homebrewfilms.tv or call her on 021 4223452. Entries close on 8 August.