An amateur cake-maker from Caerphilly is to have her home-made rhubarb crumble cheesecake tasted by millions after she won a competition on ITV’s This Morning.
Zoe Williams, 25, will see her creation on the shelves of Tesco after beating two other finalists last week. She will get her picture put on the cake’s packaging and all profits will go to charity.
She said: “Winning the competition and getting my dessert sold in Tesco is beyond my wildest dreams as I only started properly baking eight months ago.
“I think every amateur chef dreams about getting their recipes being tasted by millions of people.”
Although Zoe baked for fun as a little girl – inspired by her gran’s fairy cakes – her interest in developing her childhood hobby came about after a serious accident.
She said: “I recently went world travelling and while I was in Australia I was involved in a car accident. I’ve been off work recovering at home and in that time I borrowed a few cookery books from the local library and picked up on my old hobby.
“I’ve always loved cheesecake so I began experimenting with different flavour combinations and then began trying them out on all my friends and family.”
Zoe now has 70 different cheesecakes in her repertoire and has recently branched out into making cocktail inspired varieties such as white chocolate mojito; Irish cream; Tia Maria; and strawberry daiquiri.
She added: “The one I made for the competition was inspired by my granddad who grew his own rhubarb and made the most delicious rhubarb crumble.”
This Morning invited their viewers to bring their home-made desserts along to tasting roadshows in Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh during August.
Tesco’s Dave Oliver, the supermarket’s food technical manager, joined This Morning chef, Gizzi Erskine, and celebrity foodie and ex-Corrie star, Wendi Peters, on the judging panel.
Mr Oliver: “We tasted so many delicious treats and met some fantastic bakers up and down the country. We now look forward to championing Zoe’s fantastic cheesecake and making it for our customers.
“We know our customers love both cheesecakes and crumble – they are two of our most popular desserts – so the combination of the two is such a great idea and it tastes delicious. We also loved the localness of Zoe’s entry, with its fresh British rhubarb.”
The cake, which was chosen by presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby as the winning entry, will go on sale eight weeks before Christmas with profits going to the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer Scotland.
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