CONSTANCE Grindrod is a cake decorator extraordinaire.

Aged only 18, she is fast gaining a reputation for her amazing cake designs and sculptures.

She will spend hours creating features in the finest detail and finds out everything she can about the person the cake is for, to include their personality and interests in the design.

If they are to feature on the cake she asks for head shots from the front and side so she can sculpt their features on the figures which she moulds by hand from chocolate.

“A figure takes a day,”

said Constance. “The faces take the longest, I use the photographs to get every feature as accurate as possible and in the case of a wedding cake I ask the bride whether she will be wearing her hair up or down, the colour of her lipstick and colour of her dress – every detail to make sure the figure matches her on the day.”

Even flowers she makes for the cake match those in the bride’s bouquet and can later be made into a bouquet themselves as a keepsake.

One of her earliest cakes was a four-tier wedding cake for an aunt. Part of the decoration involved making 1,000 tiny individual leaves which were dipped in an alcohol-based solution to give them the right multi-textured look.

She was 15 when she iced her first cake for one of her sisters. “I really enjoyed doing it and kept on doing it for family and then friends,”

said Constance.

As word spread her clientele grew and as she finished college she had to decide whether to go full time as a business or go to university.

“The problem with university was that I was beginning to build a clientele and did not want to lose that,”

said Constance, “I do not think it was the wrong decision at all, I want to create brilliant cakes for people and do the best I can.”

She now runs Connies Cakes with her mum, Gillian, from their home in Borough Road, Northallerton, where their kitchen has a five-star top hygiene rating.

Mrs Grindrod bakes the cakes and Connie designs and makes the decorations.

“Mum has always been a very good baker and people say our cakes do not only look good but taste good too,” said Constance.

Both mother and daughter are perfectionists. They taste each cake and if it is not to their satisfaction another will be baked.

Attention to detail is everything. One large cake depicting a house included individually-made bricks and one made in the shape of a large bird table was so good the bird lover did not at first spot it was a cake when he saw it hanging from a tree in his garden.

Another cake for a farmer featured a combine harvester on the top and made it into Farmers Weekly. Her father, Paul, works at the Rural Payment Agency in Northallerton and excitedly pointed it out to his colleagues.

”He was so proud,” said Mrs Grindrod.

“I have to make each cake as wonderful as I can, it must be a cake the people will remember for ever,”

said Constance, who attended St Francis Xavier School in Richmond before going to Darlington College.

“I want people to challenge me with designs. My goal is to be the best I can be and to give the best I can give.”

Her dream is to make a life-size person and to also visit America to see “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro who is famous for his life-size cake creations.

Contact Connies Cakes on 01609 772753 or visit connies-cakes.co.uk.