Entrepreneurial duo Linda Williams and Julia Atkinson have found their baking business is just the right recipe for them to balance home and work life.

The pair met seven years ago, when they both had just had their first child and Ms Atkinson was delivering leaflets after developing her love of baking cakes into a micro-business. They became firm friends when they found they were both originally from the north-west of England.

Ms Atkinson used to work as catering manager at St Cross College, Oxford, and always brought cakes to social events, sometimes even sneaking them into cafés.

They were both looking to go back into employment and they were investigating opportunities to balance work and the demands of their growing families without compromising either. Ms Williams, who worked in marketing for 3, the mobile phone company, before leaving her career to have children, realised they could start a business selling Ms Atkinson’s cakes to cafés, personalising them for birthdays and arranging corporate contracts.

The result was Happy Cakes based in the kitchen of Ms Atkinson’s Summertown home, which, in a neat twist, they have since found was built on the site of the Oliver & Gurden cake manufacturer, which became part of the Lyons Group in 1968.

They worked for two years selling the cakes to cafés and a chain of delicatessens and using leaflet drops to build-up a customer base.Then they decided to set up a website.

“We have never turned down business and we always deliver on time and by hand.” said Ms Williams. “Our motto is: cake and kindness go a long way!”

www.happy-cakes.co.uk