Cook At Home

Cook At Home is the go-to destination for food lovers and home cooks in Flanders. The platform offers a comprehensive selection of resources to help you create a mouth-watering meal. With an extensive collection of recipes from 10 talented Belgian chefs and accompanying wine recommendations, you will have everything you need to impress your guests.

Additionally, the platform features a curated list of top restaurants. As a member of Cook At Home, you will be able to attend exclusive events and take advantage of special discounts with a variety of partners.

The platform was fully built by Blastic. We opted for a composable platform based on Next.js and Azure Functions, Algolia, and the headless CMS system Kontent.AI

The Challenge: build the Flemish Netflix platform for chefs

Cook at Home approached Blastic with a request to create a cooking website that would set itself apart from other cooking websites by offering numerous options for finding the perfect dish. Their goal was to allow users to search for recipes based on the ingredients in their fridge, discover new recipes through the weekly menu, save favorite recipes, and even submit their own.

Access to this section of the website would only be granted to those with a Cook at Home platform account.

Furthermore, the website required an additional section where Cook at Home could share valuable tips and tricks.

Cook-At-Home had already provided us with a preliminary design for the platform, which we used as a starting point. We took full responsibility for the project, from design to development and delivery.

Our Solution: providing the best digital video and cooking experience by building a composable platform to connect the right technologies easily and quickly.

As mentioned earlier, the client provided us with a preliminary design, which served as our starting point. We organized several workshops for UX/UI/Design to strike a balance between the client's requirements and the user experience. We also conducted functional analysis workshops in parallel to ensure that all functionalities were clearly defined and that the required test scenarios could be described.

With a clickable Figma design and a detailed functional analysis in hand, we commenced the technical analysis. After careful consideration, we concluded that a composable digital experience platform was the best solution.

Our platform, based on Next.js and Azure Functions, was designed to be modular and flexible.

We chose Next.js because of its comprehensive library of tools, which make it easy to integrate with other technologies like Kontent.AI and Algolia. Algolia's search function ensures that recipe searches run smoothly, allowing users to search for dishes and recipes with a built-in filter function. We store all platform data in Kontent.AI, a headless CMS system that makes it easy for users to add and manage content.

Azure Functions were integrated to provide server-side logic to the platform. This enables communication with external parties like Stripe (for payment processing), Vixy (for video delivery), and PlusDeals (for discounts) whose APIs are not publicly available. Azure B2C is used for authentication and usage management, while Azure Cosmos tracks user data, including their weekly menus and favorites.

To safeguard API keys and sensitive data, we separated this logic from the client-side code. Our platform is user-friendly, with easy content management and navigation. Users can effortlessly search for their desired dishes without any obstacles.

The Result

You can find our work and Cook-At-Home's delicious dishes on the website: Cook At Home