Huge appetite for Sheffield start-up teaching how to make fresh pasta

The idea for Twiddle came after fun times cooking and baking with her daughters.

Her eldest, eight-year-old Annabel, had been a fussy eater and she was desperately trying to all sorts to get her into eating and enjoying food.

Annabel and sister Mia always loved making pasta and Viktoria started experimenting with colouring the dough as a way to hide more nutritious ingredients inside. It was so successful they kept inviting their friends around to roll the dough.

Eventually, Viktoria was asked if she could do a friend’s daughter’s birthday party – for 15.

She said: “I only had the name of the business and a half-done logo, one pasta machine and a few cutters. I wasn’t ready at all and had just six days to pull it off – but I wasn’t going to say no.

"I have always loved cooking and entertaining my friends, especially with throwing dinner parties and introducing them to some authentic Hungarian dishes.”

Viktoria is Hungarian and moved to Sheffield in 2007, she is now a dual citizen.

Now she runs monthly pasta workshops at Kooc Cafe on Ecclesall Road, does private dinner parties, children’s birthdays, Beavers, Rainbows, Brownies, clubs, children’s holiday club activities and corporate team building cooking workshops.

She added: “I’m doing well, I already have quite a few private bookings for the first quarter. One of my January workshops is already sold out, I’m running more Beavers and Rainbows clubs in Dore and Crosspool and have been asked to do a workshop at Bluebell Children’s Hospice in April.

“A highpoint was teaching 21 boys at the local Beavers as I only had one hour to make fresh colourful pasta from scratch.

“Some of the children were only five and I could tell some have never cooked or got involved in the kitchen before. Ever since then, parents stop me in the village telling me how much their children enjoyed my session.”

Viktoria had ‘great help’ from Natalie Fletcher at Business Sheffield.

Email Viktoria at: [email protected] for more information.