‘I baked my way out of depression’

The doctors had prescribed medication but Britt Box, 31, from Kent, found another, sweeter, way to aid her recovery…

‘There are some moments in life where everything seems to fall into place. For me, this happened 10 years ago when I found myself baking for the first time. As I held the cake mixing bowl in one arm and stirred with the other, I could feel myself grinning. It was such a special moment because it was the first time I’d smiled in a very long time.

Baking isn’t something I did growing up. My mum, Marie, was a single parent who worked long hours as a mental health nurse. When I was in my early teens, my whole world imploded when she was diagnosed with non-hodgkin lymphoma. After a gruelling few years, she passed away when I was just 16.

I felt so alone and every day became a struggle. I was diagnosed with depression a year later and a doctor prescribed antidepressants, which they said I’d be on for the rest of my life. I dropped out of school and spent the next few years working in various jobs to support myself. Although the medication did help me cope, having the courage to continue felt insurmountable.

Then a friend asked me to bake something for her school’s charity bake sale. “You’re not doing much,” she said to me. She was right – I had no excuse, so I gave it a go.

I wanted to make a Pudsey bear cake, but as I’d never baked before, I went straight to the packets of cake mixes. I didn’t have any cake tins, so I had to make it in a square roasting tin that I used for potatoes!

The cake itself came out inedible. It was sunken in the middle and the icing was thin and cracked. But as I squeezed the coloured tubes to carefully decorate it, I felt so happy. I had something to focus on.

Although my Pudsey creation

failed, I was inspired. I signed up to some cake making classes. Before I knew it, that very same week, I had made 10 more batches of baked goods. They were much better than Pudsey and I passed them on to friends and neighbours for charity sales.

I found the methodical nature of baking therapeutic and the smell of cakes in the oven so comforting. My depression started to ease as I had a new-found sense of purpose. I started rushing home from work as an admin assistant just to put the oven straight on. I’d spend hours experimenting with ingredients – one evening, as I was trying out different flavours of macarons, I realised it was gone midnight!

PEACE AND PURPOSE

In 2013, I met Tim, a hypnotherapist, at a Christmas party and instantly fell for him. We moved in together and married in 2018. Luckily, Tim had a sweet tooth and loved tasting my creations!

As I got better at baking, I started taking on commissions, making special cakes for different celebrations, such as birthdays and anniversaries. I also started writing about both baking and my mental health journey on a blog, She Who

Bakes. To my surprise, it gathered 40,000 page views every month and was awarded the Gold

Award for Best Blog at the Kent

Digital Awards in 2015, among many other accolades!

My life suddenly became so busy, I barely had time to sleep.

When I was made redundant,

I took it as a sign to go full time with a cake-baking business.

I set up a cake studio to teach decorating classes and wrote a book called Cakes,

Bakes & Business.

I’ve been off antidepressants for six years now and I fully credit baking for that. It beats chemicals any day. From the moment I was mixing the ingredients for that first Pudsey cake, it has brought me constant peace and purpose. It’s helped me become confident. But most of all, baking showed me how to be happy again. I don’t know where I’d be without it.’

• Visit shewhobakes.co.uk

‘I found the smell of cakes in the oven so comforting’