No more tiers of joy as Lyndhurst’s Peony Cottage Cakes’ queen Lou calls it a day
CAKE artistry queen Lou Judd is leaving a brief but stunning business career as she takes a new direction with her family.
She has been running Peony Cottage Cakes as a proud member of the New Forest Marque, with masterpieces including New Forest Show centrepieces for the national park authority for the past three years.
“Not bad for someone who had barely made a cake before,” she laughs.
Lou lives in Lyndhurst with her son Joe and her partner Paul, and developed her organisational skills over 16 years as an operations manager in the not-for-profit, charitable and public sector.
Cake icing mastery had never been on her agenda until Paul bought her a place on the The Cake Makery, Couture Vintage Cupcake course as a Christmas present.
The intention was for Lou to gain the skills to make her mum’s 70th birthday cake featuring her favourite flower, the peony, but it ignited her passion for cake making and creative design.
Then redundancy forced a focus switch and Peony Cottage Cakes was born in July 2020. Since then she has had commissions for many bespoke cakes, having gained certification for food allergy and intolerance training, and top grade food hygiene.
She explained: “I set up my business during Covid, to tide me over during this time, having been made redundant and facing being out of work with a mortgage and a child to feed, house and home-school.
“I have had the pleasure to make so many fabulous cakes over the last four years in business.
“During Covid I practised my skills, with family, friends and locals all being the recipients and taste testers.
“Once out of lockdown I continued with this and some self employed work that I gained – but now I need to focus whatever time I have on my main income stream. Any down time I get I need to spend with my family and friends, as life is too short to spend it constantly working.
“It’s been the biggest and hardest decision I have had to make, as I absolutely love making cakes and designing and creating such masterpieces; but unfortunately as a business this is not viable.”
Lou explained that the time-consuming combination of admin and her fastiduous eye for perfection, plus soaring ingredient costs – “my butter has more than doubled since I started” – meant she sometimes operated at a loss.
So now she’s stopped taking new commissions and is just seeing through outstanding orders.
She explained: “Next year sees some big changes for us as a family as my partner of seven years will move in after serving 35 years in the Army, and my son leaves school.
“So now, with this and the fact that a cake business is such a hard business to have, it’s time for me to close my doors and ovens and just do cakes for my friends and family as a hobby.”
