KELLY PEARCE
How the Cornish mum discovered her baking was fit for a Queen
When Kerry Pearce answered a last-minute request to make a cake for a community project, she never could have dreamt who the creation was actually for.
It wasn’t until after Kerry, 47 this week, had worked round the clock to finish the fondant-topped bake that she learnt it had been admired by none other than the Queen, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge – and that Her Majesty had made the first cut with a ceremonial sword.
The triple- layer vanilla and strawberry jam sponge with vanilla butter icing looked so enticing that the Queen commented: “That looks very good,” when she saw it at the Eden Project’s Big Lunch celebration last week.
Kerry’s road to cake-baking fame began when she was tagged in a post on a local Facebook group by someone looking for a last-minute baker. “I had no idea it as going to be for the Queen or the G7 summit or anything,” she exclusively told
hello!. “The woman on the phone just said it needed the Big Lunch logo on it and that it needed to have fondant icing. She said they were going to take it out to the community to portion it up afterwards.”
A TICKING CLOCK
Having completed the job in just 48 hours, she put the cake to the back of her mind – until her mother Lesley messaged her with a picture of the Queen and her bespoke bake the morning after the event.
“I felt a bit sick, to be honest!” she said of her reaction when she found out who’d cut the first slice. “I was very shocked and couldn’t quite believe it. It was a little bit crazy. I had to turn my phone off because my social media just went completely nuts. I later got an email from the organiser, who said: ‘I don’t know if you have seen, but your cake has become famous!’ She said she was sorry they couldn’t tell me who the famous guests were, but they were sworn to secrecy.”
The cake, around 24in by 16in and 6in deep, was the biggest one Kerry had ever baked. “It was quite challenging. I used 60 Cornish eggs in the recipe.”
Kerry has been baking cakes since she and her mother Lesley ran a café in Fowey. After it closed in 2004 she continued with word- of- mouth commissions until officially starting her baking business three years ago, which she combines with her work on the sheep farm where she lives with husband Ben and his parents. She also does administration for Ben’s boat rental company and helps out at the parish council.
But despite her busy schedule, it’s the Queen’s cake that has got everyone talking this week.
“I’m still a little bit sort of overwhelmed by it all, really – people have been randomly giving me a little curtsy!” she said. “It just shocked me in a good way. I can’t quite believe it.”
‘I don’t know if you have seen, but your cake is famous’