SA's 10 most Googled recipes of 2020 - how many did you make?

With restaurants forced to temporarily close their doors and food delivery services halted, even those who hate to cook were obliged to get more intimately acquainted with their kitchens during lockdown.

Foodies, of course, relished the change to experiment with new recipes, especially as they had more free time on their hands while housebound.

So what was everyone cooking? According to Google’s Year in Search report, SA’s internet searches show we were most interested in baking and — thanks to the alcohol ban — making our own booze.

These are Mzansi’s 10 most Googled recipes of 2020:

1. Pizza dough
2. Donuts
3. Pineapple beer
4. Banana loaf
5. Pancakes
6. Magwinya (a cousin of the vetkoek)
7. Lemon meringue
8. Cinnabon
9. Naan
10. Pornstar martini

It seems we weren’t only keen on making food but finding it. “Restaurant near me” and “Grocery stores near me” topped the list of the 10 most-searched queries of this nature. “Mexican food delivery near me” also featured.

Culinary queries also took three of the spots on this year's 10 most-Googled questions list. They included “Where does vanilla flavouring come from?” (#6), “Why were cornflakes invented?” (#7) and “Where to buy beer during lockdown?” (#8).

Luckily, we no longer need to know the answer to the last question as bottle stores are back in business.

As for vanilla, the real McCoy comes from vanilla pods, and cornflakes, well, believe it or not, the answer is related to masturbation — click here to find out more about the strange history of this popular breakfast cereal.