Awards win is icing on the cake for Fylde coast cupcakes business

A Fylde coast woman is hoping she has the recipe for success with a business building on the love of cakes and the Great British bake-off.
Maighread Mercer and daughter Elissa won awards in a national cake competition in BirminghamMaighread Mercer and daughter Elissa won awards in a national cake competition in Birmingham
Maighread Mercer and daughter Elissa won awards in a national cake competition in Birmingham

Maighread Mercer has opened a shop dedicated to sweet treats on Victoria Road West in Cleveleys.

And Once Upon a Cupcake is heading towards its busiest time of year as wedding season approaches. The team, which has picked up national awards in its first year open, say couples should book early as dates can become unavailable.

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Maighread said: "I have always enjoyed baking and started decorating cakes for my daughters and it went from there.

"I worked in an admin job alongside running the cake business from home for about three years. I had taken several courses in that time and eventually built up to doing wedding cakes. And now have won quite a few awards.

"Then my admin job ended last summer and so I looked into expanding the business and getting myself a cake shop. We opened just before Christmas.

"We sell daily baked cup cakes, tray bakes and we also create special wedding and birthday cakes to order, sell supplies and equipment and run

sugar craft courses."

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She said some of the designs can be very detailed and the cakes can take many hours work to create.

She explained:"For example an average single tier cake can take six to 12 hours depending on the design. A wedding cake could be between 40 and 60 hours work.

"I worked 100 hours to create the cakes for two weddings before Valentine's Day. The flowers can take a long time to do, mainly because of the drying time."

Maighread's brother Niall Livesey, 19, helps out in the shop seeing to customers and keeping on top of sales and stock lists.

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Maighread and her daughter Elissa , 10, have won several awards in the Cake International show in Birmingham over the past two years, they are already preparing for the 2018 show

Up against more than 1,300 other entries, Maighread won bronzes in wedding and cup cake categories, Elissa entered the children’s category with a teddy bears picnic and a mermaid scene themes.

She added: "Once Upon a Cupcake has a five star rated kitchen and conforms to trading standards regulations, this is a must for anyone looking to purchase food especially with more people having allergies, we also cater for gluten free, dairy free and also offer vegan friendly cakes."