I was recently contacted by the lovely Laura Parish of Lawley’s Bakery who kindly offered to bake me a cake to review. Despite not having much of a sweet tooth, I jumped at the chance having followed her burgeoning Instagram over the last few months.

Having always been more of a savoury kinda gal, I was surprised to find that I am 100% more partial to sweet things since I quit smoking back in January. Laura’s Instagram is full of picture perfect cakes that she makes in her spare time. FYI – she is completely self-taught. Skillssssss. She specialises in big cakes and is about to embark on her tiered cake journey so get over to Instagram to follow her progress!

So, let’s get to the cake. Showstopper or what?

This is four layers of vanilla sponge, with homemade raspberry jam and crushed meringue topped with butter cream icing and meringue kisses.

I took the cake along to our most recent Brighton Girl Magazine editorial meeting (there was no way I could eat my way through this monster cake by myself!) and it was met with gasps of wonder and awe.

It was so beautifully presented, smoothly iced around the edge, flashed with raspberry jam, crushed meringue sprinkles and two tone meringue kisses on the top. I was sad to have to cut into it, it looked so perfect.

We were glad we did though, look at those perfect layers! Mary and Paul would be jizzing their pants at the evenness of those layers. Even I, a non-baking expert, know that!

The cake was lovely and moist (gross word, no other alternative), light and fluffy, the raspberry jam cut through the sweetness of the cake with a sharp tang, the crushed meringue adding another texture in. When there are four layers, it definitely needs all these elements to balance it out. The butter cream icing (my favourite) was lovely and not too sweet (on the cusp for a non-sweet eating person I would say) and I can officially report that her meringue is as good as Granny May’s and that’s the highest praise!

I took the rest home and the boyfriend trialed it – got his seal of approval too and he made me cut off another big slice before taking to work for my colleagues to finish it off.

Again, it was met with oohs and aahs and lots of praise for how beautiful and impressive it was!

This cake is worth £35.00 and has now been eaten by 18 people – that’s less than £2.00 per slice and would be worth every penny!*

When Laura first contacted me, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to be able to find to say about cake but then I received this gorgeous work of art and I now feel like I’m gabbling.

You can find Lawley’s Bakery on Instagram here – she covers all local areas so please do get in touch if you are in the market for a cake. Lawley’s can also be found on Facebook.

So, what’s next for Lawley’s Bakery? Big things, I think!

the wee food blogger 💛

* This cake was provided to me for free but all words, thoughts (and gushings) are completely my own.