“It was really unfashionable to be into cake decorating. It was very frumpy, I got into it way before it became trendy.”
As an arty person, she wasn’t dissuaded by its lack of popularity.
“Sugar craft is kind of where food meets art. And I do love art. I just really enjoyed it, and I sort of got the bug for it.
“I’d get some rubbish cake books and just try, and I mean some of my first creations were really embarrassing, but I loved making them. Because I had three kids under three and I wasn’t at work, I would just be baking cakes all into the night and started doing it for the nursery and my mum said you should do this as a little side business. So that’s how it started.”
From practising at home and making baked goods for a local deli in Leigh-on-Sea, she was then able to land herself a job at a bakery in London.
“So I went to London with my rubbish photo album, with all my Teletubbies cakes, and they were like, ‘Do you want a job?’ So I started working in this bakery in London, which was fantastic. I got to learn how to get that immaculate finish.”
From there she started her own business, eventually landing herself a cookbook deal.
“I got spotted by the buyer from Fortnum and Mason and then decided I’m going to do my own cake shop. We were supplying Harvey Nicholls all across the UK, then I met a literary agent and got my first book deal.”
On the wonders of air fryers
Juliet believes that the name of air fryers is slightly misleading.
“I think they’ve got the wrong title. They’re not labelled right. Air fryer just says frying ‘beige’ foods, making things super crispy, but it’s basically a mini oven.”
When testing recipes for her air fryer baking book, she found the process of converting oven recipes to their air fryer versions relatively simple.
“I’d only baked sort of simple things like cookies or tarts. So I tested a Victoria sponge and I tested a big loaf of bread. It came out so well. Then I was like, right, so I can do this. It was actually fairly simple to convert it.”
Her collection of air fryers has now almost reached the double digits – to her family’s dismay.
“I’ve had nine or maybe even 10. I think my family were just absolutely sick of it because air fryers can be quite loud, can’t they? So they’d all come down in the kitchen, and there’s the sound, this sort of sea of ovens going along, whirring, and then the beepers going off here, there and everywhere, millions of alarms going off.
Although she does believe her impressive air fryer collection will be put to good use one day.
“My fantasy self was always imagining that one day I’m going to have a big country house with a massive kitchen and a second kitchen and then an outbuilding where I do my recipe testing. Well, one day I’ll be able to fit them all in, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
On baking – almost – everything in the air fryer
Although most recipes can be adapted for the air fryer, Juliet has found that not quite everything works.
“I was really, really happy that I could do all sorts of things like Christmas cake, pavlova, cheesecakes, I was a bit worried about cheesecakes. One that really got me, and I was so cross I couldn’t nail it as I tried so many times, was English muffins.
“Because of the fan and the air, they just kept blowing up into balls. Even though I’d flattened them, I even tried a gentle press halfway through. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and an English muffin has got that classic look, so I just had to ditch it.”
She found bread on the other hand, is a big success in the air fryer.
“Bread comes out so well in the air fryer, I don’t know what it is about it. It’s like this magical kind of space. So I actually think bread comes out better than in the oven for me.”
On being Christmas’s ‘number one fan’
A self-professed ‘number one fan’ of Christmas, Juliet loves the food, traditions and family time.
“I love it. I’m obsessed with it. It’s that time where you’ve got your family together. You’ve got all the food, the grazing, the drinks, and all the magical side of Christmas. I’ve always, since my kids were tiny, really done all the traditions, like putting the glitter in the fireplace and putting everything out for Santa.
“I think it’s just a really nice time because everyone’s at home and relaxing. It seems to be the only time that people do actually switch off from work. Even when you’re on holiday, you’re still like, working from the beach or something. At Christmas, everyone does seem to just go away for a couple of weeks. They’re just so in the day that work is sort of forgotten.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, her favourite meal is a roast, and she believes she makes a pretty good one.
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“I think it’s nice because it’s a meal that brings people together.”
