When I started sharing recipes on this blog in early 2015, writing a recipe book felt like something way beyond my reach. But, I stuck it on my bucket list anyway, and carried on doing what I loved – creating the yummiest things I could possibly dream up, and sharing them on here. I also shared my photos over on my Instagram account, which started off really as a collage of terribly-lit shots at bad angles taken on an old iPhone, where my audience of lovely followers started to grow.

I made many friends, some of whom I’ve now been lucky enough to meet in real life too, and came across the most wonderful community of people. In stark contrast to my previous job in finance fiddling numbers around on a spreadsheet I felt like I was actually helping people, as many people who made my recipes were also intolerant or allergic to the ingredients I avoid using.

I started wondering whether I could monetise my business somehow, as I wanted to start a family, was desperate never to work in finance again but had no other qualifications, and wanted to work for myself (I’m not too good at being told what to do you see). So I started supplying some small local cafes with things like energy balls and raw bars, earning virtually nothing but feeling so proud of every penny. When baby H was 6 months old I took a stall at a local farmers market, which was an amazing experience but bloody freezing! From there I began supplying restaurants, baking birthday cakes and running monthly classes from my home. It was wonderful, but in retrospect it was probably a bit too much for me at the time with a young child to look after too.

But the dream of doing a book was still very much at the forefront of my mind niggling away, so I started reaching out to contacts, agents and publishers to see if I could make it happen. I wanted to write a book full of all my most delicious creations, with quirky anecdotes and stories to accompany each one. And I wanted to share with the world how easy, simple and inexpensive it can be to make these kinds of recipes, so that no one has to be without dessert just because they don’t eat gluten, dairy, egg, soy or refined sugar.

I feel so grateful that I found some lovely people who believed in my dream, and so confident that what they helped me to produce is, I believe, the ultimate cookbook for free from, plant based, sweet treat deliciousness. It’s available on Amazon for you guys to order, so please if you’ve enjoyed my recipes on here give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

Thank you for everything – this book is for you guys!

Love, Mrs H xx