The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Cakes on a plane for St Cyrus woman
EasyJet staff gave cake its own seat as woman made her way to London contest
A St Cyrus woman has thanked easyJet staff after they gave a cake she had spent weeks making its own seat on a flight to London.
Ella Barton, 42, had spent more than 30 hours designing the cake which showed a gothic scene of an angel trapped in an old tower for the UK’s biggest cake competition at Alexandra Palace.
But she was panicking after discovering the large box containing her intricate design was too big to be stored under a seat or in an overhead locker on the plane.
However, kind-hearted cabin crew told Ella she could move to a vacant back row of the plane and that the cake box could get its very own seat beside her.
“It was strapped in with a seat belt all the way to London,” said Ella.
“The crew initially said sorry you can’t go through the flight with the box but it was a very nice lady who let me sit at the back of the plane with the cake box in a spare seat beside me.
“I can’t thank her enough for all she did to help me.”
Despite her best efforts at keeping her lovingly designed cake safe, when the mother of two reached her hotel she realised it had been slightly damaged in transit.
“Originally the angel was chained to a post with the chain made out of sugar but unfortunately that broke at some point on the journey to London so I had to quickly make a rope.
“The hand was damaged as well which I was able to repair the night before. “It was stressful.” “It was a difficult design to make, to get good proportions and also to show the emotion on the angel’s face.
“It took between two and three weeks working a few hours a day to create it.”
Ella, who came to Scotland 12 years ago from Poland, said she was astonished when her cake received the bronze medal for best small decorative cake at the Cake International award.
She is hoping it will lead to more orders for specialist cakes and customers at her St Cyrus cafe The Old Bakery which she opened six months ago.
“I was very surprised to win the bronze award because the competition had hundreds of competitors who were very talented,” she said.
“I used to make cakes with my mum when I was little but it wasn’t until I was looking for a cake to be made for my son’s birthday three years ago that I was told all the cake makers were very busy and fully booked.
“I started from scratch and spent many, many hours learning skills from watching videos on YouTube before advertising my creations on Facebook and the business grew from there.”
The crew initially said sorry you can’t go through the flight with the box but it was a very nice lady who let me sit at the back of the plane with the cake box in a spare seat beside me. ELLA BARTON