A mother and daughter team have scooped top awards at an international cake baking competition for the second year in a row.
Linda Donnelly and daughter Ceri Badham won a gold award for the best three-tier wedding cake at the Cake International event in Manchester.
The pair run Fancy Cakes by Linda and first partnered up four years ago after Ceri left her contracting job at IBM after 18 years of service.
Ceri, of Lodge Way in Stevenage, said: “The day after I quit, my mum asked me what I was going to do, and I joked that I would build her a website and start making cakes with her, but it was always a joke.
“Then I woke up the next day and I just thought: Well, why not.”
Over the past four years Linda – who has 26 years of cake making experience – and Ceri have turned their hobby into a business and now make bespoke wedding cakes which start selling at £400.
Last year, to boost Ceri’s confidence, Linda pushed her to enter Cake International with her three-tier ruffle wedding cake, and was shocked to see her walk away with a Gold Award, the highest award possible for sugarcraft.
“Neither of us expected that,” said 43-year-old Ceri.
“The cake took more than 24 hours to make and I had to cut out 1,000 flowers for the lower tier.”
This year Linda, 66, and Ceri were also asked to make a 30cm high cake in the style of a Fabergé Easter egg.
Their pink design featured sugar flowers from every season and took them more than 30 hours to complete.
They exhibited it alongside 14 other bakers from across the country – and among their rivals was 21-year-old Laura Loukaides from Stevenage.
Laura took home a Gold Award from Cake International Birmingham last year and added another accolade to her collection at the weekend.
Her puppy cake, featuring three life-like snoozing puppies under a blanket and near doggy biscuits, stole the judges’ hearts.
And she also impressed with her decorated Fabergé egg cake after spending more than 30 hours pipiing intricate black and white icing pearls to make it stand out from the crowd.
She said this week: “I was so surprised to find out my sugar egg had been awarded with a second place!”
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