So where did my love of cake begin?

I’m a south London girl who grew up at a time when kids roamed free, played outside in the street with our friends, made perfume from rose petals and sold it to passers by, shared the few toys we owned and entertained ourselves with simple games like ‘had’, hopscotch, British bull dog, two balls and skipping. We knew all our neighbours young and old and all the kids on our street played outside with each other. The kids on our street were always in and out of each others houses.

Children knocked on each others houses to invite their friends to play out. If it was tea time we simply waited inside our friends house while they scoffed their food and resumed our play when they were done.

Mrs Williams who lived on our street was a fabulous baker. Whenever she made a cake she'd give all the kids on our street a slice, so I frequently got to eat lovely, fresh, homemade English cakes.

That was one of the things I remember most about the first streetI lived on - Mrs Williams and her cakes. And I think this is where my love of English puddings began.

My mum was also a great baker but she made traditional Bajan fare like yellow cake, sweetbread and black fruitcake for Christmas. Sometimes she experimented with ‘ English’ delights like fresh apple and blackberry pie using the blackberries we’d picked from ours and our neighbours gardens. Or rock buns, fairy cakes, chocolate eclaires and sponge puddings. She mixed the ingredient by hand and my sisters and I each got to lick the batter off a spoon.

But as a special treat on Sundays we had shop bought Mr Kipling’s Victoria sponge, swiss roll raspberry jam or chocolate swiss roll - something about the artificial taste and texture of these cakes made them even moorish and appealing.

As soon as I was old enough I asigned myself the role of making the pudding for my family's Sunday dinner and I think I've been baking as a hobby ever since. Much to the delight of friends, family and collegues.