THE gift of baking was not magically bestowed upon Ann Sherwood in the cradle by a sweet-toothed fairy godmother. It was nurtured over time, out of sheer necessity.

As children, it became glaringly apparent to Ann and her siblings that culinary delights would always evade them unless they claimed command of the kitchen and kept their mother firmly out of the stove's bounds.

"My mum was a bad cook," she laughs. "I was brought up in a family that loved food but my mum's cooking was more food for fuel. She tried hard, it was filling and nutritious but not really aesthetically pleasing. So it encouraged me, my brothers and sisters to learn. I loved to cook as a child.

"I love the fact that you take all these ingredients – a bit of flour, sugar and a few eggs – and you end up with all these cakes. Seeing the process through is great. Baking brings happiness to people. Everybody loves slice of cake.”

This precocious foray into the culinary arts prompted her to enrol in a cookery course at Swindon College at the age of 16. But as fate would have it, she would not fulfil her wish to become a professional baker until three decades later.

Instead after completing her diploma, she was hired as a cook in the British Home Stores' staff restaurant, where she would remain for 12 years before starting a family.

Followed retail jobs until, 11 years ago, she was recruited as a student support worker at Swindon College. Four years ago she was appointed catering and hospitality teacher at the college.

She had been harbouring a secret dream of running her own bakery for most of her life but never dared to act upon it, when finally last spring she was asked to supply baked goods for an Old Town coffee shop.

“I had made my own wedding cake and cakes for family and friends but that was it," admits the 51-year-old from Rodbourne. "I always loved to entertain people and bake for everyone but having my own business frightened me. Doing the books, and keeping track of everything was scary. I had never had the confidence to make the jump.

“An acquaintance at work got me in touch with Baila. They wanted someone who made home-baked cakes. That was the push I needed. Being able to do it from home convinced me. I set up the business; it all happened very quickly. A relative set up a website and I started Mrs Sherwood’s Fancy Cakes. I came up with a range and it happened through word of mouth.

“People started ordering and I thought ‘I can’t believe I never did it before. I should have started 20 years ago'.”

To hone in her decorative skills, she entered a showstopper draped in icing and sugar flowers, with a dainty teacup crowning the lot, in the Swindon College's Big Bake Off last summer. She won first prize in her category. So impressed was one of the judges – Christine Wallace of The Great British Bake Off fame – that she cheekily tried to coax the secret behind the teacup design from her.

This spring she came out victorious once more at the college's baking competition with a coquettish Marie Antoinette-styled cake topped with an intricate fan.

Achieving such visually striking results has been far from the proverbial piece of cake. Creating extravagant designs has proved a learning curve, structurally speaking, for the autodidact.

She certainly had to dodge her fair share of ‘engineering’ pitfalls when tackling gravity-defying desserts. Like any stable construction, any self-respecting tiered cake requires sturdy foundations, in the form of dowels cleverly concealed under layers of sponge, or disguised with icing and buttercream.

“I can be up to 3am if I get stuck with an intricate cake,” she says, her cheeks colouring slightly. “The engineering is tricky – the cakes have to be stable.

“I get all the ideas and think ‘Why don’t I do this or add that?’ I make it worse for myself.

“I’m self-taught and because I’m not trained in the technique I probably go the long way round and often find out that something that took three days could have taken just two hours of work with sugar. You just learn doing it. And you never stop learning.”

Presentation aside, as a home baker at heart Ann is intransigent when it comes to taste.

“Even if it looks lovely, if you cut a cake and it’s not good there is no point. It can’t be a complete waste of money or calories,” she adds. “It’s about the flavour. A cake must be worth eating.”

On that note she head backs to the kitchen ready to come to blows with a recalcitrant Double Decker bus - her most challenging bake to date. The structure may be more rickety than she hoped at this early stage, but the indulgent sponge concealed beneath the pillar-box icing certainly is worth every last calorie.

To place an order with Mrs Sherwood’s Fancy Cakes go to mrs-sherwoods-cakes.co.uk, visit the Mrs Sherwood’s Fancy Cakes Facebook page or email msfancycakes@gmail.com.