How it all began

I have to smile when I look back and think about how I started my life as cake maker.  It was a pure accident .. but a very happy accident that has completely changed my life.

My elder daughter was turning five and I was planning her birthday party – a joint party with another child in her class.  They were having a Peter Pan party as Emma, my daughter, was a complete Tom boy and her friend Maria could not have been a more girly girl!  .. Peter Pan has fairies and pirates – a winning combination!

Maria’s mum casually asked me one day what I was baking for Emma, as she was making a Fairy tale castle.  I gulped hard and confess a few expletives crossed my mind.   … I hadn’t decided yet I said.   GREAT – I thought … or words to that effect.  I had been planning on going to the supermarket to buy a Tracy Island cake (which Emma wanted!).   To be honest I needed this like a hole in the head as I was only just beginning to come up for air after the birth of my twins two years earlier.  Life was chaotic in our household and the last thing I needed was to have to bake a fancy birthday cake!

Now I love baking but didn’t have a clue about decorating -so I marched up to the Library with my twins in tow to get out a book on cake decorating for complete beginners/dummies …

A friend told me about a local cake decorating shop where I could buy coloured pastes and tins – and that was it!  I was away.  The shop was probably my downfall – I bought my first cake decorating book by Debbie Brown – and I haven’t looked back since, I was addicted and started making cakes for anyone who said yes!

… and I am happy to report that Emma loved her cake!