Local cake maker to the stars does it again

When you decorate cakes for the likes of Conor McGregor, Shane McGowan, and even Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, being asked to bake a cake for Bob Geldof’s 70th birthday is all in a day’s work for Tubber cake maker extraordinaire Tanya Ross! The owner of multi-award winning cake decoration company, Novel-T Cakes, in Parkwood, in Tubber, on the Offaly/Westmeath border admits that she was “up to her eyes” making wedding, Confirmation and Communion cakes on Tuesday of last week when she got a call from The Late Late Show to bake a very special cake – and they needed it two days later!

“I was just up to my eyes, but you can’t say no to The Late Late Show now, can you?” she laughs. The researcher wouldn’t tell Tanya who the cake was for, but agreed to send on an image of what they were looking for.

That image was the cover of the Boomtown Rats classic hits album cover from 2013, which was the fifth greatest hits album to be released by the iconic pop group fronted by Bob Geldof.

“I smelled a rat at that stage (pardon the pun) so when the researcher rang back I just asked her straight out if it was for Bob Geldof, and she said it was but I was sworn to secrecy, so I had to set to work straight away,” says Tanya.

“I absolutely love what I do, and I thrive on being busy so it was a real race to get the cake finished, and my biggest regret is that I was too busy to go on the set of The Late Late Show and get to meet Bob Geldof,” she says.

Tamya’s husband, John Ross, works in Dublin so he travelled to work on Thursday morning last, with the precious Boomtown Rats ‘cargo’ on board and it was couriered from his workplace on the north side of the city out to the RTE Studios in Donnybrook in good time for the Late Late 70th birthday tribute to the Boomtown Rats front man.

This is not the first time that Novel-T Cakes have been requested to deliver one of their amazing award-winning creations to The Late Late Show studios. Tanya designed a very unique cake for the Tribute show in honour of The Pogues front man, Shane McGowan, and on that occasion she was on the set of the show and got to meet the music legend himself and had pictures taken with him.

“It is always great to see the reaction of people when they get to see the cake I have designed and decorated for them, as I try to make each cake as personal and as unique to the recipient as possible, so I try to find out as much as I can about the person before I start to create each cake,” she says.

She recently made and decorated a cake in the shape of a boat for MMA star, Conor McGregor, after she got a phonecall one day in her Tubber home from his partner, Dee Devlin! “People always ask me what it’s like dealing with someone like Dee Devlin, but she was honestly lovely and at the end of the day these celebrities are just normal people like the rest of us,” says an unfazed Tanya.

The South-African born mother-of-three, who ended up in moving to Tubber over 20 years ago when she fell in love with, and married local man, John Ross, whom she had met in South Africa, really believes she was “born to make cakes”

“It all really started when my kids were having birthday parties, and I used to make their cakes, and then other mothers started asking me to make cakes for their kids, and it just grew from there,” she says.

However, the magnificent creations that Tanya Ross bakes and decorates in her home are no ordinary cakes. In fact, they have won awards all over the world, and she was named among the Top 10 cake artists across all of Ireland and the UK last year for her elaborate cakes.

When asked if she likes cake herself, she admits that she doesn’t eat cake now as much as she used to in the past, but her favourite cake has to be chocolate. Her husband and family are not take interested in cake either, which is why she says she likes going to cake competitions. “”My family are sick of hearing me go on about my cakes, so it’s great to go to a cake show and not have people’s eyes glazing over when you mention the word cake,” she laughs.

As well as decorating cakes for well-known celebrities, and also giving classes in sugercraft, Novel-T Cakes also bake cakes for all special occasions, and Tanya

Ross says they are “very, very busy” at the moment with everyone playing catch up for all the special occasions that were missed over the past 18 months with the pandemic.

Are there any other celebrities on the hunt for a Novel-T cake?

“If I told you that I’d have to beat you with my spatula,” is the witty reply from Tanya, who admits that every cake she is asked to make and decorate “gets the same care and attention, regardless of who requests it.”

Novel-T Cakes can be contacted on their Facebook page, which also features an breathtaking array of pictures of Tanya’s cakes, and she advises customers to “give as much notice as possible” to her when ordering a special occasion cake.