A little pink shed full of cakes is helping to bring a Wirral community together

A little pink shed filled with homemade cakes is helping to bring a Wirral community together.

Keen baker Sandra MacPherson only opened her Willowbank Cake Shed outside her home in Birkenhead four weeks ago.

But it’s proved such a big hit with neighbours and passers by stopping to pick up a treat, she’s already thinking she might have to add a second.

Mum-of-four Sandra opens the shed door at 10am each Saturday morning, refilling it through the day until 5pm or until all the cakes, buns and cookies are gone.

So far, every Saturday has been a total sell-out, and her stock has had to go up from 80 portions to 240 to keep up with customers.

South African-born Sandra, 56, says the reaction has been much bigger than she’d anticipated.

She explains:

“I trained as a home economist, and I worked for commercial catering companies and ran cooking courses. When I came here, I was a stay-at-home mum for quite a long time although I did lots of event planning and catering for our local church.

“My children are all grown up now so towards the end of last year I was looking to do something that was more my interest rather than for my family. I’d seen these cake sheds and I love baking so I thought I’d do that.

“I launched it on March 14 and the response in such a short time has been totally amazing. 

“It’s a great way for me to express my creativity and to showcase what I can do and at the same time it’s been lovely because we’ve met so many neighbours. 

“It’s given the area a nice sense of community, and we’ve been popping out to say hello to people when they come so I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Sandra bought the shed ready-built, then enlisted help from husband Oliver in customising it to sit outside their house.

“I basically designed how I wanted it to be, painted it and then asked him to add all the extra trims. It’s a very pretty shed, exactly how I imagined it to be, and I think it’s one of the reasons people like it so much.

“When we first opened I was quite nervous about whether I’d get customers. A few friends came and we had a little ribbon cutting, so I knew I’d have some support initially which was great, but it’s just been so busy after that.

“I’d put my Willowbank Cake Shed page on some local Facebook groups and leaflet dropped a few roads around our house and then word just seemed to spread.”

Sandra’s is an ‘honesty’ cake shed, so she doesn’t have to be there serving customers and taking payment; they can help themselves to her bakes and pay for whatever they take.

“I have a locked money box where people can put cash, a Sum Up machine so they can calculate what they’ve bought and tap their card, and there’s also a QR code that will take them to Apple Pay, so it works really easily. 

“There’s a camera and a button people can press if they need any help, but I’ve had no problems in terms of honesty, and sometimes when I’ve added it all up at the end of Saturday I’m actually a little bit up on numbers.”

With demand increasing, Sandra says she was tempted to add Sundays, but she’s keeping it to one day for now.

“To produce that amount takes me a few days, and I just want it to be more of an event, so people know it’s just on Saturday, then I can have the rest of my weekend.

“We’re near the junction with North Road which is busy and I have a board out there so we get a lot of people who just pull their cars over and jump out. Other people are just walking in the neighbourhood or they’ve seen my ads and decided to come especially. 

“We’ve lived in this house for 18 years and we’ve met neighbours who we’ve never met before. They meet each other on our driveway too and I think it’s such a nice way to bring people together – with cake!”

Find out more about Willowbank Cake Shed here.

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