Christmas cake 'extravaganza' raises £13,400

Glenda Price, on the farthest right, boxed up all 137 cakes that were sold for a local hospice

A cake decorating club has raised more than £13,400 for charity by selling nearly 140 themed bakes.

The Stowmarket SugarCraft Club in Suffolk made and displayed a variety of cakes at the town's St Elizabeth Hospice charity shop.

The club collected £6,426, which was topped up by a construction company that promised to match or exceed the amount raised.

Glenda Price, the chairwoman of the Stowmarket SugarCraft Club, said the group had "really excelled ourselves this year".

Mrs Price told BBC Radio Suffolk the group had been holding cake "extravaganzas" before Christmas for the past six years, raising £57,573 over that time.

"We had cakes that looked like snowdomes with Father Christmas in front of them, we had cakes with penguins playing by ponds.

"We had a cake that looks like a piece of cheddar cheese with a piece of Stilton on top with mice stealing it."

The cakes gave club members a chance to show off their sugarcraft skills

Mrs Price packed each of the 137 cakes, which went on display in the charity shop for two weeks.

She said each cake sold, along with the match-funding from Precon Products Ltd, would pay for a nurse to visit somebody's home at Christmas to make sure they were comfortable and pain-free.

"What is Christmas about if it isn't about something like that," she said.

Mrs Price said they would wait until next year before making plans for a repeat extravaganza in 2025.

"We always wait until Easter to start talking about that because we're only a little club, we have to see what our numbers are."