A keen baker and businesswoman from Loosley Row has won gold in a cake competition.

Alpa Boll, 39, from Woodway, created an intricate seven-tier wedding cake and entered it into Cake International’s wedding cake category, winning gold for her design.

Cake International, a sugarcraft, cake decorating and baking show, was held at the Birmingham NEC from 7 to 9 November.

The elaborately designed cake, which features a ruffled base layer, hand painted hummingbird designs, gold sequins and gold leaf as well as a cascade of flowers, was decorated by Alpa in her spare time, juggling being a mother to two young boys and maintaining her own business.

The keen baker, who won Bronze in the wedding cakes category and a Merit in the celebration cake category last year despite creating her cakes while having her kitchen refitted, said: “Winning was absolutely amazing! It was such a huge achievement for me. I have been working so hard these last two years pushing myself to learn more and perfecting all I know. This design was in the making for a year and it shows all my skills in the one cake which all came out when the card saying 'gold' was placed next to it. There were lots of late nights and days when I had family looking after the boys so I could crack on with working.

“For the wedding cake category you are allowed to use cake dummies which are polystyrene blocks. However you have to treat it like a normal cake, everything on it has to be edible and everything inserted into it like wired flowers have to be done as if it was real.”

Alpa, who has had a passion for baking since she was a little girl, set up her own cake making business, Simply Alpa, in 2010 and specialises in wedding cakes and sugar craft.

She said: “It was always what I wanted to do and the time seemed right as I was also looking after my two little boys and I can manage work around them, most of the time!”

After her success at the world’s biggest baking show this year, Alpa now plans to enter more competitions.

She added: “It’s a great opportunity to try something new, to experiment and push yourself on a creative level. It’s a fantastic weekend meeting others in the industry, seeing all the various stalls and going to workshops and being inspired by all the other fabulous cakes that people bring along.”