Self-taught baker from Bury St Edmunds is bringing school dinner desserts back on the menu
A self-taught cake-maker has used her 'gold-dust' retro school dinner dessert recipes to bring joy to those wanting to take a trip down memory lane.
Leah Myers, of Bury St Edmunds, is the mum of three behind Naughty But Nice Cakes which began eight years ago when her son who has autism struggled to attend school.
Now the 34-year-old's business has gone from strength to strength, and she regularly produces stunning celebration cakes, intricate cupcakes and brownies.
Explaining how it all began, she said: "I sort of fell into really. I have three children and I started baking cakes and things for them when they were little. I would post pictures on Facebook and people would request things.
"I gave up my insurance advisor job of 10 years because my eldest son has autism and he was having a hard time at school. The school kept calling and telling me to come and pick him up. It just wasn't feasible to stay at work so I decided to make cakes full-time and I've been doing it full-time for five years now."
Out of all her delicious bakes, the most sought after sweet treat is her retro school dinner desserts.
"The people of Bury go crazy for the old-school desserts," she said.
"It all came about because a friend of mine wanted me to make her a toffee cream pie, but I found there wasn't any recipes online. I decided to investigate because my mum and my nan worked in a school kitchen. My auntie had the original recipe and nobody else seems to have it so it's kind of like gold dust."
"I think because you can't buy them people just love it - like the chocolate crunch, the cornflake tart, the toffee cream tart and the ice sponge cake."
In future, Leah hopes to continue setting up local stalls and would like to open her own cake shop.
"I have been doing stalls over the Christmas period. I got to meet customers and people got to know who we are. Going forward I would love to do more things like that.
"Eventually, when the kids are a little older in the next five years, I would love to open a little cake shop or a café."
To find Naughty But Nice Cakes on Facebook, see here.
