Cupcakes are not just delicious... in these gloomy times they could well be inspirational. Sharon Griffiths meets a woman of many parts who is baking her way to a new future.

ANGIE Townsend's kitchen is overflowing with flour and sprinkles and an awful lot of chocolate.

Two months ago she launched herself in a new business - The Tiny Cake Company.

It does exactly what it says on the cake box.

Angie makes tiny cakes - everything from traditional butterflies, miniature Victoria sponges, small and gooey chocolate cakes to foreign fancies such as blueberry and lemon friands, Madelines or little Greek honey and almond crescents.

Yet really, Angie is a gardener. Or a writer. Or a natural healer. Or a film maker. Or a teacher. Or an artist... She is constantly re-inventing herself, dusting herself down and starting again. And constantly successful.

At a time when none of us is guaranteed a job for life, Angie Townsend is a great example of the joy of new directions.

Originally from Gloucestershire, she was an art teacher at Richmond School and then became interested in natural healing, "back in the days when it was still considered really bizarre".

She did well, featuring in a Tyne Tees documentary, but after some years found it increasingly draining - "especially as I worked from home and I suddenly wanted my privacy, wanted my house back". She decided she needed a new direction and took to gardening instead.

"I have a large garden that I had gradually rescued from wilderness.

It was open in aid of the Red Cross and I got known," she says.

Redesigning the garden took years of hard physical work, as well as inspiration.

Friends and neighbours started asking her advice and help.

That led to work as a gardener - "at one time I was doing 14 gardens"

- as well as a garden designer and writer. She made a film about her garden and had a business selling plants.

THEN Angie's health failed and her hips packed up. Any heavy physical work was suddenly out of the question. "So it was bye bye gardening," she says.

And at the age of 54, yet again, she had to start from scratch.

"Of course I miss the garden, especially the nurturing of things, but luckily, I've always had a positive attitude.

I come from a family of farmers and miners in the Forest of Dean.

They constantly had to re-invent themselves and get on with things. If something bad happens, you can't just sit there feeling sorry for yourself.

You have to get on and do something new."

It is, she admits, not easy to give up something you've enjoyed and launch yourself out into something completely unknown.

"It's like stepping out into a void.

You've no real idea of what you're getting into, of how you will cope.

But you have to try it, don't you?"

You also, she says, have to work out what your strengths are. When she had to start thinking of a new career just at a time in life when many people are contemplating easing down to retirement, Angie's thoughts turned to cakes.

"Whenever I had open days in my garden, I used to do all the baking for the teas. I had lots of nice comments about my cakes and I thought, well I enjoy baking, there's something I could do.

"I enjoy being creative. You have to know where your strengths are.

The common thing running through everything I've done is making the most of my creative streak."

So now she spends at least two days a week baking hundreds and hundreds of cup cakes. She's already built up a regular clientele and a host of special orders. "Each week I like to do a mix of old favourites - especially those tiny Victoria sponges - and something new.

The day we were there she was big on chocolate - little cakes topped with dark chocolate mixed with cream and fudge icing or milk chocolate truffle and brandy. They are, of course, deliciously wicked. But they're only small, so it's easy to treat yourself with a clear conscience.

A small indulgence, just what we need.

Some of the cakes are decorated with little white chocolate hearts and flowers. Angie makes all those as well.

Or you can try Christmas cupcakes - sponge with mincemeat and topped with brandy butter. Or mini cheesecakes. Or the blueberry and lemon friands - made with almond, egg white and icing sugar and incredibly popular in Australia and Europe - "and, soon, I hope just as popular here."

Angie is happy experimenting at the moment - "I'm working on some lovely coloured ideas now - pretty pastels and bright rainbows" - while business builds up, cakes take over the house and partner Mark gets roped in to do the washing up.

All seems to be going well. The cake is definitely iced. But she still misses working in her garden.

"I do, of course, I do. I had already made a lot of it easier to cope with and I can supervise if Mark or someone does the heavy work for me. Or I can just potter a bit if the weather is fine," says Angie. "But I can't do what I did and there's no point worrying about it. Now I have moved on."

The cupcake guide to reinvention.

Sounds sweet. Tastes good.

TEESDALE MERCURY MARCH 17TH 2010