At the court of the king of cakes

IT looks like something out of a fairy story - a tiny beamed building, like a dolls' house in the shadow of The Gates shopping centre. Possibly the oldest shop in Durham, it has to be special. And it is.

It is a cake shop - think of a cake and Dave Adamson can make it, from the simplest birthday cake to the most elaborate wedding cake. There are Disney-style castles, caravans, open books, white vans, dart boards, Indian temples - complete with removable waterfall - cakes of every shape and size, from the bit of daft to elaborate, exquisitely iced, three, four and five-tier cakes that are works of art.

Dave and his wife, Anne, opened the shop at the end of last year. She is the daughter and grand-daughter of bakers. They met when Dave was working for her dad. They ran their bakery business in Sunderland but always did cakes as a sideline.

"But baking's a dying trade," says Dave. "I've been a baker all my life. I was brought up on a farm where my mam did all her own baking and cooking. But it was getting harder to get staff or find people who wanted to learn."

And more people wanted cakes. At the end of six-day weeks of 12-hour days, Dave was spending his day off making 20 or 30 cakes for special orders. It seemed like the obvious change of direction.

He and Anne spent months looking for premises and knew when they saw the tiny shop just on the way into the shopping centre, that it was just right.

"It's hundreds of years old and been all sorts in its time. Luckily, at one time, fairly recently, it's been a café, so downstairs was done out as a kitchen. We didn't have too much work to do there."

Their recipes are all the proper thing. "Most of them are the same recipes we've been using for years, recipes that have been handed down through the family."

They'll make your wedding cake in a sponge, chocolate or lemon if you like - or a tier of each. But before you say you don't like fruit cake, they suggest you try a bit of theirs.

"If you've only ever had fruit cake from a supermarket, then of course you don't know what it's meant to taste like. Once people have tried ours they realise it's completely different and then they decide that, yes, they really like fruit cake after all."

If you want a traditional three-tier fruit cake, iced and decorated, then they really need 16 weeks notice, "so we can feed it with brandy, and then there's the decoration". But they've done cakes at a day's notice for rush weddings.

"And the students are always last minute. They're always dashing in at half past four wanting something special. As long as it's not Tuesday - my snooker night - I try and sort it for them. But really we like a week's notice."

Whatever your ideas, Dave will try and do it for you. He's never failed yet, though some of the cakes owe as much to engineering as baking - like the Dalek, whose main structure was an up-ended Swiss roll.

They can also print up photos to use on cakes. "It sounds like hi-tech magic, but actually it's just edible ink and a transfer system," says Anne. But it means they can use a picture of the baby on a christening cake. And there was a cake done just like the front page of a newspaper - complete with photograph of the recipient.

Most popular are football cakes - he does them for the Stadium of Light too.

"Most of our football cakes are pretty evenly divided between Newcastle and Sunderland. Maybe an occasional Man United."

Apart from the simple square cakes, the most popular design is the open book - often with each side in a different sort of cake - that can adapt well to all occasions, even a wedding cake.

And if you want to make your own cake, they also sell many of the accessories that you need. "We're gradually building up that side as we see what people want. But we can order anything in within a week."

The only downside of the new business is that now Dave is so busy making cakes that he hardly has time to bake bread for the family - and despairs of finding a decent loaf to buy. But that's a small sacrifice.

Many thank you cards and notes from happy customers tell their own tale.

"Whatever you want, we'll try and do it. We haven't been beaten yet."

But if you want one in a rush, just better not make it Tuesday.

Ice n Easy Celebration Cakes, The Gates shopping centre, Durham. www.iceneasycakes.co.uk Tel: 07756-822844.

8in square cakes, iced and decorated £20; book-style cakes £50. Wedding cakes up to around £400, depending on number of tiers and degree of decoration.