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Introduction

Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine that wonderfully evocative smell of a freshly baked cake, and then imagine slowly sinking your teeth into all its glorious, gorgeous gooeyness – bliss. There really isn’t anything more satisfyingly indulgent than baking your very own cake, something just for you (and perhaps a friend or two). However, many people have been missing out on this pleasure in the belief that dairy-, wheat- and gluten-free cakes are difficult to make successfully. I don’t know why because as I have discovered over the past few years, this is so far from the truth. Baking without dairy, wheat and gluten really is straightforward and in this book I hope to show you how to bake really delicious and beautiful cakes. And all my recipes work equally well using butter and normal plain and self-raising flours; just remember to remove the xanthan gum from your list of ingredients.

Little did I imagine as a child standing on a stool, helping my mother bake one of her delicious cakes, that one day I would be an award-winning artisan baker, baking on television for Michelin-starred chefs and princesses, both real and self-appointed! My journey from child enthusiast to bespoke baker has not been a conventional one, but if you dream of yummy cakes like I do, it’s amazing where your dreams can take you. I have always loved cake: light delicate sponges, rich moist fruit cakes, spicy carrot cakes and dense chocolaty delights. In fact, any cake is guaranteed to put a twinkle in my eye and a huge smile on my face. The wonderful smell of a baking cake can still take me back to that happy and carefree time with my mother and now when I bake, my young son stands next to me, determined to help and even more determined to lick the bowl!

In early 2004, whilst pregnant with my first longed-for child, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer that had already spread to my lymph nodes. I had to make the mental shift from excited mum-to-be to anxiously discussing life-saving treatment options with my surgeon and oncologist. I won’t pretend it was easy because it wasn’t. My oncologist was brilliant and came up with a plan of action to work around my pregnancy. I couldn’t have the standard cocktail of drugs because no one knew what effect they could have on my baby, so a special regime was designed for me. I underwent four courses of chemotherapy before giving birth to my son and a further four immediately after the birth. Two weeks after finishing my chemotherapy, I had the first of 17 radiotherapy sessions, which once completed were immediately replaced with a year’s course of the drug Herceptin. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, but luckily Charlie was a really good baby and my husband was amazingly supportive. Everyone has their own way of coping with a life-threatening diagnosis and mine was to try and help myself by looking at alternative ways of treating cancer which would complement the conventional treatments I was having. So after hours of research and lengthy discussions with a nutritionist, I made a life-changing decision to radically change my diet and eliminate all dairy products, milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt. Whilst I never doubted changing my diet was worth it, I was devastated that I couldn’t just pop to the bakers to cheer myself up with a delicious cake. After all, when you are miserable, treating yourself to something yummy is usually a good way of lifting your spirits.

In desperation, I scoured bakeries, supermarkets and upmarket health food shops for suitably delicious dairy-free cakes. Whilst I found a few, none of them satisfied my need for something wickedly sinful, beautiful to look at and tasting like normal cake. Some people would gracefully accept the situation and resign themselves to a life without, but not me. As far as I’m concerned, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ and I thought, why not bake my own, so I did. Nothing was too complicated or too daunting. If I felt like eating it, I baked it, and it was brilliant. I experimented with dairy-free alternatives and adapted many of my mother’s recipes, most of which were successful. I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt to sink my teeth into something sweet, sticky and totally delicious, but it was very close to heavenly! From that point on, I always took my own cakes with me wherever I went. After all, I didn’t want to miss out, and it wasn’t long before people were waiting for me to arrive! A friend then asked if I would consider baking wheat- and gluten-free cakes, as her young son was intolerant of both. Loving a challenge, I said I would give it a go. I was so pleased with the results that wheat and gluten joined dairy in being banished from my kitchen forever.

Whilst I was conducting my culinary research, I couldn’t help thinking, surely I am not alone in this quest? There must be others out there, just like me, yearning for luscious cakes. And I was right. I discovered between 20% and 30% of the UK population believes it has an intolerance, whilst between 1% and 2% of the population has a diagnosed allergy. Recent evidence also suggests that 1 in 100 people is affected by coeliac disease, so there are lots and lots of people out there like me searching for that ‘Holy Grail’– the cake ‘you can have and eat’. So with my health improving, I decided to launch my own bespoke baking service, Cake Angels. Rather than taking on the responsibilities and ties of a shop, I decided I would bake a range of cakes to order and dispatch them by overnight courier, meaning they could be out of the oven and on a customer’s doorstep within 24 hours. It didn’t take long for word to get out and my belief that people on restricted diets were badly served when it came to simple, yet beautifully delicious, cakes was proved to be right. Soon I was baking non-stop and not just for customers with allergies or intolerances, but for people who have simply made a lifestyle choice not to eat animal fats, wheat and highly processed foods and, of course, for anyone who just loves cake. A few months later, my dairy-, wheat- and gluten-free brownies won a coveted two gold stars at The Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards, with the judges commenting that they were exquisite – no mean feat considering I was competing with products containing dairy! Subsequently, numerous articles about Cake Angels have appeared in the press and interest and demand continues to increase as more and more people realize how delicious dairy-, wheat- and gluten-free foods can be.

Many of my customers have shared with me their stories of disappointment and frustration with the limited and uninspiring range of products available to them, but are unsure of baking their own cakes. My cakes are not complicated to bake and I don’t use unnecessarily baffling and inaccessible ingredients (in fact, most can be bought at the supermarket). Baking the simplest of cakes can fill your house with delicious smells and fresh out of the oven, they taste absolutely gorgeous. My book is full of my favourite recipes and will show you how easy it is to bake gloriously moist and delicious dairy-, wheat- and gluten-free cakes. Just follow my guidelines and tips and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.