MADE your Christmas cake yet? Filled the freezer with date and walnut loaves, cherry cakes, ginger cakes or lemon drizzle sponges? Thought not.

Nothing tastes as good as home-made baking, but sadly, fewer of us have the time or inclination to do it. For every domestic goddess like Nigella, whipping up a delicious chocolate cake, there's probably a few hundred harassed mothers just flinging another mass-produced offering into the supermarket trolley. It doesn't have to be like that.

There is a small army of women out there who have made baking their business. It's still done at home, in their own kitchens, the proper old-fashioned way, but on a scale large enough to supply a few local shops and farmers' markets. They will all take orders for Christmas cakes (if you're quick) and special occasions.

So if someone asks if your Christmas cake's home-made, you can reply with a confident "yes" - just don't say which home it was made in.

Mrs P's Country Kitchen.

Enid Pilcher, of Barnard Castle, retired from nursing and soon began to look for something else to do with her time. "I'd always baked. My mother did and she passed it all on to me." Although she makes cakes, these days Mrs P concentrates more on her range of traditional biscuits: "I spend a lot of time rolling biscuits, but it's very relaxing really, a bit of a stress buster."

In the days leading up to a farmers' market, Enid gets some help from daughter Beverley. "Making the biscuits and cakes is all right, the main problem is packing and labelling them." And husband George does the deliveries.

"It's a bit of a family enterprise now."

Typical prices: Fruit cake £7.50 a kilo, which for a seven to eight-inch cake is usually under £10.

Buy them at: Thorpe Farm Peel House farm shop on the A66 eastbound near Barnard Castle; Peats in Barnard Castle and village shops including Cotherstone, Bowes, Melsonby and Eppleby. Also Farmers' Market at Barnard Castle on Saturday, December 1, 10am-3pm; Bishop Auckland on Thursday, December 6, 5.30-8pm.

Alison's Country Pantry. Tel: (01833) 640494.

Alison Sayer learnt to bake at home, worked in a bakery when she left school "and I'm still baking", fitting it in around family life on the farm in Lunedale.

"I make cakes, buns, biscuits, fruit pies, anything and everything plus, of course, lots of rich fruit cakes at this time of year." At busy times, she can be baking seven days a week.

"I'm not as involved in the actual farm as much as I was. Times change and it's a different life from my parents' day. But I still enjoy baking and family and friends help out when it's really busy."

Typical prices: Average-size rich fruit cakes start from £7.50.

Buy them at: Armitages, Middleton in Teesdale; Mickleton Post Office; Mainsgill Farm Shop on the A66 (west bound, near East Layton crossroads, Richmond). Farmers' markets including Darlington today; Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland, Durham, Richmond.

Lea Darling, of Burtree House Farm, Darlington. Tel: (01325) 463521.

Lea and husband Robert - whose family have farmed at Burtree for nearly 40 years - are regulars at farmers' markets with free-range eggs and, at Christmas, their Kelly Bronze Turkeys. Last year, Lea started baking "in a small way, to complement the rest of the things we do on the farm. And it just snowballed."

She now makes jams, chutneys and a whole range of cakes, from rich fruit cakes to sponges ("all packed in nice boxes so they don't get squashed") and a wide range of loaf cakes - apricot and sultana, ginger, cranberry and raisin.

The fruit cakes come in dark and light, standard or luxury and, says, Lea, she owes a great debt to the people at the WI Market in Darlington, "who taught me all about the packing and labelling". Always busy, before a farmers' market she's frantic, with three solid days of baking, and now they've opened a small shop at the farm, where you can buy eggs, lamb and cakes, and put in orders.

"We're trying to cut the mileage that food travels to make things more local and personal."

Typical prices: small fruit cake, £4-£6; eight inch deluxe, dark top-grade cake, £12.75.

Buy them at: Farm shop at Burtree House Farm; Farmers' Market in Darlington today; Barnard Castle Farmers' Market December 1; Bishop Auckland Farmers' Market December 6 (5.30pm-8pm).

Chapel Cakes. Tel: (01833) 630959.

Sally Wood started Chapel Cakes just this summer. "I worked in catering for years and also worked for Mrs P, but when my two boys started school, I thought the time had come to start up by myself.

"I make all sorts of things, but mainly traditional - curd tarts, lemon meringue pies, sponges, drizzle cakes, loaf cakes. Everything's' fresh and natural and I use only free range eggs."

She too is a regular at farmers' markets ("two days and nights baking beforehand") and has already noted different tastes across the region. "At Bishop they love the small things - almond tarts, scones, maids of honour, but at Barnard Castle they always want the big chocolate cakes."

Typical prices: Loaf cakes £1.70; Chocolate logs £2.75; 8" rich fruit cake £10, with marzipan and icing £12.

Buy them at: Tarn's, Barnard Castle; Post Offices in Bowes, Cotherstone and Piercebridge. Farmers' Markets in Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland.

* SOME more charity catalogue addresses: Alzheimer's Society, Long Rock, Penzance TR93 0AL (mainly cards); Amnesty International, Cambertown House, Commercial Road, Goldthorpe Industrial Estate, Rotherham S63 9BL; Blue Cross, PO Box 48, Burton on Trent, DE14 3LQ; Cancer Research Campaign, PO Box 272, Burton on Trent, DE14 3LQ; Diabetes UK, PO Box 37, Burton on Trent, DE14 3LQ; The Leprosy Mission, PO Box 212, Peterborough PE2 5BR (some nice crafts); RSPCA, PO Box 47, Burton on Trent, DE14 3LQ; World Cancer Research Fund, PO Box 81, Burton on Trent, DE14 3L

Published: 16/11/2001