For Goodness Cake

Might sound corny, but most wedding cakes that I make are memorable to me because each of them are personal. I did do a 3 foot tall Princess castle cake with crystal droplets and LED lighting last year.... that will take some beating in the memorable stakes!

Fun, personal, rustic, memorable tasty!

I love the fact that couples continue to use me after I've made their wedding cake. I get Christening cakes and first birthday cakes and almost become the family baker. It's lovely to watch the start of a new family and become a small part of watching it develop and grow.

Have fun. Don't feel pressurised into having things or suppliers you don't need or want.

I made a desert table for a wedding and the whole family had been involved in making props for the day. The father of the groom had made a wooden swing cake topper ( which I sat icing rabbits on), but he'd also made a full miniature model of the wedding breakfast setting which was used as the table plan..... tables, chairs, everything.

Couples will tend to approach me for a quote and more info. I give all the relevant info that I can at this point. I then send out free postal samples of 8 of my most popular flavours of cake to make sure that they like how they taste. For a rustic style of cake we can design over the wires or by phone. But for a more personal design I will visit the couple to talk through everything and make sure the cake is designed exactly how imagined.

Probably the rustic styles. Because I work closely with some fantastic farm venues, my style suits these venues perfectly. I get a lot of interest in my naked cakes decorated with flowers and berries, and my semi-naked cakes or buttercream cakes.

At the moment it's probably a very colourful wedding cake which was based around vintage tattoos and the cake toppers were handmade painted sugar skulls.

When my son was little and at infant school I used to run the cake stall at all the school events. One of the other mums was an event planner who stated that I should do this as a business. I set the business up as a side-line whilst I worked full time in my original profession ( I was pharmaceutical research chemist). 18 months later and struggling to find enough hours in the day to keep working full-time and run my cake business, I was offered redundancy as my department was closing. I took the redundancy in 2012, stating I'd give myself 2 years to see if I could make my business work.... and I've never looked back. I love being my own boss and love being involved with making a couples wedding day, as special as it can be.

It would all depend what the theme was!

To be honest I don't watch GBBO.... I have my own Bake Off taking place in my kitchen most weekends!