I am Helen, the founder and owner of Algarve Cakes.  I fell in love with baking cakes as a child watching my mum make intricate sugar flowers and designing beautifully hand crafted wedding cakes and birthday cakes.  Despite going to stoke on Trent college where I trained as a chef and front of house manager, and qualifying with NVQ’s levels 2 & 3, becoming a personal licence holder, and working as a chef for a few years, and front of house supervisor which I loved, especially when running weddings.  I still had a passion for baking and I would bake cakes for family and friends, until I took the plunge to move to the Algarve after a holiday where I fell in love with Portugal and it’s way of life. After a year or so living in the Algarve I decided to set up Algarve Cakes, and absolutely love what I do, from meeting clients, designing cakes, baking and decorating making all the sugar details. It’s just the perfect combination, doing a job I love in a place I love. 

 

Algarve Cakes is predominantly run by myself Helen.  I now  lovely little girl who is now 4 years old, Olívia.  She is in training!  She obviously  doesn’t help with my cakes for clients,  but she loves to help me bake.

 

A little family history you may also like to know, my great great grandfather “William Henry Chapman” baked and decorated the Coronation cake for king Edward Vll in August 1902! By all accounts he got the job over a French baker, and he was none to impressed he lost out, so he took a shot at my great great grandfather!  I believe he missed.  My parents said there was a newspaper cutting to go with the photograph, but sadly it’s been mislaid. 
 

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