Bakes by Hope: First look inside new Instagram-able Bamber Bridge cake shop selling cookie pies, bourbon brownies and Lotus Biscoff 'bronuts'

What started as whipping up delicious treats using boxed mixes at age five or six-years-old with her nanna has turned into a dream career.

At just 21, “star baker” Hope Campbell has opened up her first cake shop in Station Road.

At Bakes by Hope, she sells her own Instagram-worthy designs, like bourbon brownies, blondies, cookie pies and Lotus Biscoff 'bronuts’, as well as traditional treats like cupcakes, drip cakes, flapjacks, school cakes, rocky roads, custom cakes and millionaire shortbread.

Hope, who lives in Bamber Bridge, said: “I’m a foodie and a one-woman band. I use all my own recipes. I got my inspiration online and tweaked recipes to make them my own.”

After moving on from boxed mixes to baking cakes from scratch, she began making treats for her friends, family, teachers and classmates, earning a reputation as “the star baker”. Bitten hard by the baking bug, she studied pâtisserie techniques at college and completed an apprenticeship at Lathams of Broughton.

She moved onto Stacey's Cake-Away – now called the Dessert Cabin – and again worked for Lathams part-time making meals for NHS workers during lockdown while baking her own products from home and delivering them to customers.

Posting her designs on social media, she began to rack up likes and comments, inspiring her to launch her business full-time by baking for cafes and food markets across Lancashire.

"I really enjoyed seeing people, hearing their comments, having returning customers and giving samples out. I love seeing people’s reactions, especially when I’m doing celebration cakes that are centre pieces at a party or when a kid sees their favourite character on a cake.

"They say, ‘How do you make that?’

“It almost feels like you are a celebrity. I love it.”

And at the shop, her cakes come with a friendly chat, she says.

“I talk with customers more like they are my friends. I'm very chatty,” she added.

“I think my shop perfectly fits Bamber Bridge. I do love Bamber Bridge. This is just a little cake shop that the town needed.”