AN ODIHAM-based wedding cake designer and creator has been recognised at an award ceremony.

Elizabeth (Liz) Wood, of company Cakebuds, was awarded the title of South Central Wedding Cake Designer/Maker of the year at the 2019 Wedding Industry Awards on Monday, 19 November.

This comes after having only been in the business for a grand total of one year and four months.

The 33-year-old said: "It feels really overwhelming to be picked. Cake-making started as a hobby for me when I made my daughter's birthday cake in 2015, and now here I am."

Liz is completely self-taught, having learnt the art of making cakes through seeing pictures on the internet, several online courses, and a lot of practice.

Some of the wedding cakes take Liz around 30 hours in total to design and then make, so in order to make them as good as possible and allow for time to raise her two children (one and three) she only makes one cake a week.

Now, Liz is looking forward to the next stage of the competition, designing, making and presenting a cake with two or three layers to the judges for tasting. She is one of the national finalists of the competition, which will be taking place in January 2019.

Liz added: "There will be lots of tough competition, but I am really looking forward to it. I'm proud of myself for getting there, which is a real achievement in itself."