Baker crowns her career with gem of a cake for Daisy Appeal

A creative cake baker crowned her achievements over the years with a special Coronation treat made to mark the royal milestone and to support a regional charity.

Jill Humphrey, who retires at the end of this month, put her talents to the test and produced a spectacular cake which was raffled to raise funds to help the Daisy Appeal with its work to improve accuracy and detection rates for people with cancer, heart disease and dementia in Hull, East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire.

Customers at Folly Lake Café near Beverley gave generously and raised £100. Fittingly, the winning ticket was bought by Karen Guest, co-owner of Guest & Philips jewellers and a trustee of the Daisy Appeal.

Karen said: “I always support the Daisy Appeal’s events and as soon as I heard about the cake I bought some tickets. The cake looks magnificent and we could always add it to the jewellery displays in our shops – but I’m sure my colleagues will make short work of it!

“We’re very grateful to Jill and her colleagues at Folly Lake Cafe for involving the charity in their Coronation celebrations. It’s about commemorating the occasion and raising awareness, and all the donations mount up and help the Daisy Appeal continue it’s amazing and hugely important work.”

Jill has worked at Folly Lake Cafe for seven years. The cake, which took her four hours to make, is a sponge with butter cream and fondant icing, royal icing for the ermine and Fox’s glacier fruits for the jewels. It formed the centrepiece for a full programme of celebrations at the café on Coronation day.

Folly Lake Cafe is owned by Anthony Clappison, whose mother Joyce grew up at the Risby Park site and has raised thousands of pounds for local charities in a business career spanning more than 60 years. Joyce regularly holds fundraising events at Wat’s On Fashion, her boutique in Willerby Road, Hull, which she opened in 1969.

Joyce said: “Risby Park is our family home and we have been there over a hundred years. We are third generation. We opened the fishing ponds in the 1980s and the café has been there for 30 years.

“All the staff there are good cake makers, and they make them all on site. They’ve held various fundraising events over the years and wanted to come up with something very special for the Coronation.”

Since its foundation in 2002 the Daisy Appeal has raised more than £22m. The Daisy Appeal Medical Research Centre opened on the Castle Hill Hospital site in 2008 and was followed, in 2014, by the opening of the Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning Centre, housing the first in a new type of Siemens scanner in the country.

The latest addition is a Molecular Imaging Research Centre (MIRC) which has been built at a cost of £8.8m and will improve accuracy and detection rates for cancer, heart disease and dementia in Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

To find out more please visit https://daisyappeal.org/

Picture details

Coronation cake maker Jill Humphrey (left) and Daisy Appeal Fundraiser Claire Levy with the cake at Folly Lake Café.

Also Karen Guest casting an expert eye over the sugary gems.