Bake Off star Kim-Joy talks about her Vegas marriage and new cookery book inspired by her two rescue cats

Kim-Joy will show you how to ‘whisk’er up cat-themed sweet delights for any occasion. From Squishy Marshmeowllow Cats, Psychedelic Kitty Pop Tarts and Pawsome Pancakes, to more decadent and playful cakes including Eye of the Tiger Roll and a Roarsome Vi-cat-oria Sponge, Kim-Joy's imagination knows no bounds. There are even savoury options such as Meow, Bao! Buns and a cat-shaped pizza as well as vegan and gluten-free alternatives too.

Kim-Joy devised all the recipes from her home in Ilkley that she shares with her husband Nabil Homsi.

The long time partners married in Las Vegas last year after they met ten years ago over their mutual love of board games.

"It was amazing,” says Kim-Joy of her wedding. “We had Elvis. We’d talked about getting married but we have been renovating an old property and Iw anted to get that finished before we got married and didn’t really want to spend too much money, We were in Vegas on holiday and it just seemed a fun thing to do. It was brilliant.”

The nation took Kim-Joy to their hearts during the Great British Bake Off with her bright punk hair and colourful fashion sense as well as her cute often animal inspired bakes.

She was born in Belgium to an English father and a Malaysian Chinese mother; she has extended family still in Malaysia.

She studied sociology at Bristol and then moved to Leeds to do a Masters degree, working with adults with learning disabilities in the community to help fund her studies.

It was while studying at university that she started baking.

“If you bake something, it makes people like you. It’s just about making people happy, I guess. But I was never really into decoration. It was more breads than anything else, I found it incredibly relaxing, all the kneading. I got into the decorative side of it later,” she explains.

After leaving university, she started working in adult mental health services as part of gaining her full qualifications. But she soon realised that working in mental health was very stressful – and that’s when she applied to appear on Bake Of after friends eventually convince her to give it a go, something she was initially very nervous about.

“People kept saying that I should apply but I knew I wasn’t ready. I wanted to do a bit more baking, especially cakes as most of my baking had been around breads and pastry. I didn’t want to apply until I knew I had the range of skills I needed.

“I’d moved around a lot and always lived in shared houses, with a shared kitchen. It wasn’t until I met Nabil that I had a kitchen to myself for the first time and that’s when I really started baking.”

Kim-Joy has talked openly about her own mental health struggles. She has described her extreme social anxiety as a teen, including selective mutism.

She is a great believer in the power of baking to improve people’s mental health and credits eventually having the courage to appear on the Great British Bake Off as helping her social anxiety and the realisation that people liked her for who she is.

She also is an ambassador for Wren Bakery in Leeds, a social enterprise that uses baking and coffee to help empower disadvantaged women.

“Baking is such a powerful thing when it comes to well being,” she says. “Wren Bakery is everything I am passionate about – combining baking and barista training to reach out to, and empower, women who face multiple barriers daily. The skills used in baking and barista work are so transferable to a lot of jobs, plus they give the women a sense of purpose and value along the way.

"I sometimes can’t believe the difference in the women when I haven’t visited for a few months. They just grow in confidence and self-esteem it is incredible to see.

"Lots of people are struggling at the moment for all sorts of reasons.”

Kim-Joy hopes her cookery book channeling feline friends, will bring a little joy into people’s lives, among the doom and gloom of the cat of living crisis. “It’s a bit of fun. But who wouldn’t have a cat’s life?” As well as as Bake Me Cat, her popular YouTube baking channel and a baking board game she created last year thanks to some of her husband’s contacts (he owns a number of board game shops) Kim-Joy is in the process of bringing out a comic and also a graphic novel.

"It is about all the things I love – baking and mental health,” she explains. “A lot of the characters feel isolated or alone in some way and they come together through baking. It doesn’t have a particularly happy ending -it’s quite sad, but then life isn’t perfect.”

So having done a baking book entirely about cats does she have any other animals in mind for her next book? “I’d love to do one about dinosaurs."

BAKE ME A CAT: 50 Purrfect Recipes for Edible Kitty Cakes, Cookies and More! By Kim-Joy Quadrille £16.99. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​