ART and baking are mixing perfectly for a Davenham woman whose unexpected success was the icing on the cake.

Rebecca Cooper, from Hartford Road, won a bronze award at Cake International Manchester with a beautiful bouquet of cupcakes.

Her accolade was all the more surprising because she only started baking and decorating cakes seriously less than 18 months ago.

“I’ve enjoyed baking since I was a kid, my mum and dad taught me how and my nan always had cakes in the cupboard when we went round,” she said.

“Since leaving home though I didn’t do much baking until about two years ago, then I made some cupcakes for Christmas and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

The 28-year-old, who is married to Northwich town councillor Andrew Cooper, started working on intricate decorations after she saw a picture of some cakes a friend had made and asked her how she learned the skills.

She was pointed in the direction of an online tuturial, put the tutorial to practice for her mum’s birthday and has never looked back.

She said winning the Cake International award was her proudest baking achievement.

“It was my first competition,” she said.

“I went to Cake International in Birmingham in November and started to think about entering after that.

“When the idea came to me I sketched it up and a few days later entered.”

She added: “It felt amazing to win bronze, they only announced the results on the second day so shockingly I didn’t sleep that night.”

She added: “I just love it.

“I love seeing the finished product and thinking ‘I made that!’.

“Also, it turns out I’m quite creative so I keep getting these ideas in my head that I need to create so I can stop thinking about them.

“I love when people tell me how lovely they are but, on the other hand, it’s really difficult to actually watch people eating them.”

Sadly for Rebecca, who works at TEVA in Preston Brook, her cakes taste as good as they look.

“People at work love them, especially the chocolate and Baileys ones – when I bring them into the canteen everyone’s heads pop up like meerkats,” she said.