Sisters' cakes are a big hit at Taste festival

Oct 3 2009 by Hannah Davies, The Journal

SISTERS Fiona Woodcock and Jane Slater are delighted to be taking part in this autumn’s Taste event.

Their vegetable cakes, sold under the name The Cake Root have been a hit since The Journal’s first Taste festival at Gibside.

The fifth Taste extravaganza is taking place at the Metrocentre, Gateshead, on Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1. The Northumberland-based pair have both been baking cakes since they were girls and, in 2007, decided to take their hobby a step further and set up a cake-baking business.

“It’s a bit of a stereotype,” Fiona says, “I’m sure many people think all farmers’ wives spend their time baking.”

Fiona, of Glanton, and Jane, of Longframlington, aren’t actually farmers’ wives but are from a family of farmers and Fiona’s son Ralph Thompson, 28 now runs the family farm, Silvermoor.

She also has a daughter Lindsay, 26. Jane, is married to Bill, a landscape gardener, and has three children James, 26, and Amy, 24, and Hannah, 22,

Fiona explains: “Tea is a big tradition in the farming community so that’s where all the cake knowledge comes from. It is a hobby which we decided to take to the next step of being a business.”

One they had decided they wanted to create cakes Fiona and Jane looked around the farmers’ markets in the region to decide how to take it further.

“We realised there were a lot of people baking cakes so we decided to do a different take on the cake.”

What the sisters decided was to create cakes using vegetables.

“We took the carrot cake as our starting point,” Fiona recalls, “and then thought about which other vegetables we could use.”

The Cake Root now create a variety of different flavours. Their top seller is a beetroot and chocolate cake, although the carrot is still a big seller. They also do a courgette and lemon and a parsnip cake.