Battle baker's sweet success

Trudy Smith beat the competition at an international cake design competition, taking a Silver Award for her entry. The 40-year-old, who owns The Chain Lane Cake Co, made a saucepan of mussels out of cake with a plate of chips made out of sugarpaste. Her design also included a bowl of mayonnaise which was actually buttercream, a bread roll and even a napkin and slices of lemon, all made out of icing and placed onto a board which had been decorated to look like wood. Trudy, who has lived in Battle for the past 12 years and started her company there three years ago, says to enter the competition everything had to be edible. “Many hours were spent individually moulding and hand painting the mussel shells both inside and out,” she said. Her baking and design talents were recognised by judges at Cake International – The Sugarcraft, Cake Decorating and Baking Show, held at Alexandra Palace, London. Trudy first started making cakes as a hobby for her children’s birthdays. “After a while I got asked to make them for my friends’ children,” she said. “It grew from there and I set up my business in 2013. “I make cakes for all kinds of occasions and they range from traditional wedding cakes, to novelty birthday cakes and more unusual requests like a pair of bleeding hearts! “I’m over the moon to have won a Silver Award at Cake International. It has been an ambition of mine to enter the competition for a couple of years and to have finally done it and to have done so well feels amazing. I’ve got the bug now and will definitely enter again to try and get gold.” See more of Trudy’s creations at: www.thechainlanecakeco.co.uk. Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live. Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on. 1 Make our website your homepage at http://www.ryeandbattleobserver.co.uk/ 2 Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RyeandBattleObserver 3 Follow us on Twitter and @BattleObs 4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here. And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out! The Rye and Battle Observer – always the first with your local news. Be part of it.