Kellie's cakes are a roaring success!

Godalming Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations regularly in a feature called 'Up Close in Godalming'.

Today we caught up with Kellie Knight, who bakes celebration cakes in Farncombe.

Every week a fantastical array of beasts makes its way out of Kellie Knight's kitchen.

Dinosaurs and dragons, tigers and bears; they are paraded out of her house by their proud new owners in white cardboard boxes - to be taken away and eaten.

The creatures - along with characters from Frozen, Paw Patrol, Toy Story, and princesses, gardeners, cyclists and astronauts - are the modelling paste decorations on the celebration cakes Kellie whips up in her kitchen. Sometimes they are the whole cake - Kellie has recreated a cat, a fish and other creatures in cake form.

Kellie makes her magic in the kitchen of her home in Binscombe Crescent, Farncombe, and as a burgeoning number of Facebook compliments testify, she does it to universal acclaim.

Her cakes are sought for birthdays, christenings, anniversaries, farewell do's and thank yous - in fact on any occasion at which cake is called for.

Last week she created an ET cake for a sendoff party for Josh Garman, the 21 year old who is cycling to Land's End with a toy ET in his basket to raise money for charity.

Cakes for family.

Kellie started her business six years ago after a cake she made for a family member was well received by guests at the party, and she started getting requests. "I have got three sons and I made a cake for one of them for their birthday and put a picture on Facebook, and then my niece's mother-in-law asked me to make a cake for her grandchild," Kellie told Nub News. "It just snowballed from there really." Kellie's kitchen has been extended, and given a clean bill of health by the relevant authorities, and now, six years later, she is making cakes for people from right across the area. Her customers find her through word-of-mouth, and via Facebook: she doesn't advertise at all. Although lockdown led to a lull in orders, nowadays she makes between eight and 10 cakes a week. Decorating ideas.

Sometimes the ideas for decoration come from the customer, and sometimes from Kellie herself.

"I love the ones where people give me an idea and I have got free rein," she says. "A lot of people send me a picture, but I always put my own twist on it."

The cakes usually reflect the personalities of the recipients: children's cakes often have a favourite fictional character, such Harry Potter or the Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Cakes for adults often allude to the recipient's interests: there are cakes with cyclists, fishermen, skateboards and gin. Kellie even created an authentic-looking 'half-barrel' topped with two cans of cider on ice.

Her favourite so far? "I made a triceratops one," she says. "I was really pleased with that."

She sources all the decorations herself, and makes the figures out of modelling paste.

"I do prefer to make as much as I can," she says."I find it relaxing making all the figures."

And she is totally self-taught. "I used to bake with my Nan when I was really young, but that's all," she says.

"When I had my sons I started baking for the boys, and have been doing it ever since."

"I just love doing it: I am in the kitchen first thing in the morning and I am there all day.

"I love it when people turn up and they love the cake, or they send me a picture of the person they are giving the cake to."

Messy mishap.

She has had one mishap in her cake-making career: "Once when it was really hot I always had a fan on in the kitchen." she recalls. "I forgot to turn it off when I was pouring out icing sugar and it got blown all over the kitchen: it looked like it was snowing. The kitchen was covered in it, and I was covered too. And it's really sticky." On that occasion she was helped to clear up by her "absolutely brilliant" partner, Ranj, who rolled up his sleeves and helped clean up the mess. Ranj is hugely supportive, she says, often stopping at the shop on the way home from work if she has forgotten to get something; sometimes bringing home a takeaway if she hasn't had time to cook supper, and often pitching in and helping with the washing-up. "My kitchen ends up looking like a bomb-site with all the stuff I have been doing," she admits. Interestingly, for one who spends her days surrounded by the sweet treat, Kellie doesn't like cake herself. "I'd rather have a scotch egg or a bag of crisps," she laughs. "Which is just as well or I would end up the size of a house!" You can find Kellie by searching on Facebook for 'A Kellie cake'.