I trained as a chef and worked around Limerick before going to Jersey in the Channel Islands. I hadn’t really gone back to baking once I left home, I preferred the hustle of a busy kitchen. In The Grand Hotel in St Helier, during my first winter there, I was assigned to the Pastry section. Some of the summer staff had left, and the remaining kitchen team would cover all sections between us. It had been a long time since I’d had anything to do with desserts, but it was absolutely where my love of baking and patisserie was cemented. The desserts they created, the butter sculptures they made as centerpieces, the petite fours, the chocolates and truffles – I was in heaven! Nothing had lit a flame under me before like the 3 years I spent there.

Growing up, baking was always on the weekly list in our house. There was always scones, brown soda bread, apple tarts and crumbles and for a special occasion, a boiled fruit cake. My mum was one of those people who could weigh things up by eye – she didn’t pass that gift onto me though! – and I’d spend Sunday afternoons getting through the bakes for the week. Every week, I looked forward to the smell that would come from the oven, it’s a warm, cozy feeling that wraps you up and you know there’s something good coming your way.  

When I did eventually come back to Shannon, pastry and desserts were in the most part, something that was taken out of the freezer and defrosted. Pastry chefs weren’t in demand and the vacancys were few and far between. I had come from meticulous and detailed into large banqueting hotels, serving 200 people at weddings 3 days a week and a lot of the emphasis was on volumes.

I got back into cakes when I had my first little boy – he’s 21 now! Our childrens birthday cakes are the starter for most of us cake makers. As the kids got older, their cakes stopped, but by that time I was doing cakes every week for customers. I took over The Fairy Queen in 2017 and the love affair continues….xx