Fermoy's Garden Centre Café is celebrating this week after its cupcakes were judged best in the UK at the Bakers' Fair in Newberry on April 10.
The cupcakes came up against stiff competition from restaurants, bakeries and cafes all over the country as part of the National Association of Master Bakers Bakery Competition 2011.

"We were delighted to win," said café manager Tracey Vallance. "We have never entered a national competition before and were so surprised to find out that we had won that somebody had to push me to go up and get the award."

The café entered two varieties of cupcake, a lemon meringue and a raspberry and white chocolate variety, created by Fermoy's chef Andrew Eveleigh, who joined the business three years ago.

He said: "I was inspired by the comments we get from customers at Fermoy's who all enjoy our cupcakes and so I created recipes that were fresh and full of flavour to give a bit of a twist to the normal cupcake."

The judges praised the cupcakes for their moist texture and said that the different layers through the cakes made them stand out.