However, on holiday recently in France I met up with my wonderful French friend Nanou who gave me this recipe for Coconut Treat Balls.

Provided you like coconut it is delicious and ridiculously simple to make so I thought I would share it on my blog.

250g dessicated coconut
180g caster sugar
2 eggs.

Heat the oven to 180c. Put everything in a bowl and mix together. Form into small, bite-size balls and place on lightly oiled baking tray.Cook for about 15 minutes or until the balls are golden brown.

Great straight from the oven or when cooled down.

Simple but delicious.

Thanks Nanou!

For other dairy free ideas though visit my friend Gemma who is much more of an expert than I at her allergy friendly website www.icedgembakes.co.uk

If I had my way I would be making these sort of things all the time but alas, most brides still want elegant, simple and white! Not that there is anything wrong with that but it is fun to inject some colour at times as well.

I took some pictures at the time and they are in my gallery but I am no professional when it comes to photos and I never saw the finished product when the fresh flowers were put on top.

Fortunately, another ex-Argus employee came to my aid - the very talented Paul Fletcher who took all the wedding pictures and below are the wonderful results.

A tremendously chocolatey chocolate cakeClose up of red sugar pastillage butterflies

Paul Fletcher's fab take on my cake

Close up of red sugar pastillage butterflies

Okay, so I know it has been a while since I posted on here but in my defence an awful lot has happened lately which has kept me occupied.

One of these things being running the first ever Brighton marathon which I managed in 4hrs 22mins. The atmosphere was amazing and despite struggling to walk for several days after and never actually wanting to marathon at all I have now signed up for next year’s race.

There is method in my madness though because I have actually run for years and, quite frankly, given the amount of cake I consume on a daily basis, I need to run a LOT or I would be the size of a house.

See you can it lots of cake and not get fat – the catch is you just have to exercise your arse off, literally.

Anyway, back to cake, sort of, as that is what this blog is supposed to be about. I almost didn’t make it to the marathon as the afternoon before my youngest daughter, who has recently turned one, ate a cashew nut and had a massive allergic reaction. Cue a 999 call, adrenaline jabs from paramedics and a trip to the local hospital.

It was all very scary at the time though thankfully she is fine now but we do have to carry and adrenaline pen in case it happens again and we are waiting for her to be allergy tested to determine if it definitely was the cashew nut and if there is anything else likely to make her swell up like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man.

However, it got me thinking as increasing numbers of my clients are also requesting allergy friendly celebration and wedding cakes – why is it that so many people seem to be suffering from food allergies and intolerances today?

Not that I am in any way shape or form an expert but I do wonder if it is to do with the high levels of certain food substances now found in so many products – wheat, gluten, dairy, nut traces. Is it because our bodies are bombarded with these substances day in day out that some people build up an intolerance or a more serious allergy to them? Or are they genetically predisposed to being inolerant or allergic?

In any case I am sure having too much of anything in a diet can upset the body balance which is why I am more than happy to do my best to cater for people wanting special dietary cakes. Having tinkered with my recipes most can be adapted and still taste scrumptious so no one need deny themselves the pleasure of a slice of cake.

For those that have multiple allergies though I would heartily recommend my friend Gemma McFarlane who runs www.icedgemcakes.co.uk as she is a trained chef specialising in food allergies and intolerances and her cakes are amazing (I should know, she did my 30th, it was chocolate and the cake itself was dairy free though you would never have guessed in a million years!)

She is currently pouring all her energies into a new website and fabulous blog on www.icedgembakes.co.uk a site packed with great articles and hundreds of brilliant tried and tested recipes for anyone with an issue with certain foods.

She is excellent at what she does and anyone interested in baking should check out her site.

Finally, on that note I have a few of my cake recipes I will be posting shortly. I see no point keeping them secret, they are so yummy I want to share them with everyone!

My mum and step dad threw a joint 60th birthday party at the Burlington Hotel in Worthing and this cake was for them. As I think I have said before it isn’t often I get carte blanche with a cake but this was one of those occasions and as you can see we really went for it!

Suffice to say everyone loved it as well as the cakes inside which were chocolate, lime and coconut, carrot and fruit.

But ta da! I now do have something to say! Pink Rose Cakes will be exhibiting at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton on Sunday alongside the wonderful Kim Ryan from Plum Catering. I will have a new cake there, one not featured on the website which will be a combination of elegant, classic and timeless with a little bit of modern pzazzz about it.

This week I will be mainly working on a cake with an icing champagne bottle and one shaped like a book with bits exploding out of it. I have also just taken an order for a Dita Von Teese-style cake which I am very excited about – it’s going to be all black and boudoir which should look very cool.

I am still waiting for piccies of my parents’ 60th birthday party for which I did the cake which you might say was Fay’s folly – a really eclectic mix of cakes and designs which they are only the ones who would probably let me do it. You’ll see what I mean when I finally post the pix!

I had a lot of cakes on that particular week and on Thursday morning he asked me if I could still do it for him for Friday, yes the next day.

As it was I managed to bake it ice it and decorate it in less than five hours from start to finish beginning at about 5.30pm on Thursday night and finishing sometime after 10pm. It wasn’t perfect by any means but it wasn’t a bad effort considering the short time to make something from scratch!

Here is the result below

Equus IFM Charity Cake

It was a 10″ square carrot cake sandwiched together with vanilla buttercream and was swiftly polished off by everyone in the office.

Having said that, apparently plenty of people helped themselves to a slice without actually paying so the cake only raised £18. Shame on you for those of you who didn’t contribute and I hope, given you all work for a big financial brokerage, you all give generously to the cause anyway!