Modesta Castellanos

‘For two years, our lives revolved around hospital stays and appointments,' says her mum Kate, 35, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire. ‘For any parent, there is little more awful than having a child with a life-threatening illness, but out of the awfulness do come incredible positives.' A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at 29 ended Sophie Ford's career as a cake maker. But, as she tells Catherine O'Brien, her culinary passions inspired her to create a network of volunteer bakers who spread happiness to sick children and their families  Tyler Abbott, ten, from St Austell, Cornwall, has epilepsy, dyspraxia and speech delay. His mother Lesley, 28, heard about Baking A Smile through a friend. Within days of requesting a cake for Tyler, she was put in touch with local baker Sammy Hawke, of Sammy's Cakes Serendipity, who agreed to make a Transformers Bumblebee cake.  When Freyja Lingard was diagnosed with Hodgkin's T-cell lymphoma - a type of blood cancer - five years ago, she was plunged into an intensive treatment regime that impacted not just on her life, but her whole family's Her mission statement - ‘Making a child smile is a piece of cake' - has captured the imagination of thousands of followers, as well as the attention of the Women of the Year toddler lunch ideas uk organisers who chose Sophie as an inspiring guest at their most recent awards ceremony.  But she has been well since then, and believes that Baking A Smile has been an essential part of her recovery. (It has certainly been a confidence boost - as well as her Women of the Year honour, she also recently received a Point of Light award from David Cameron for her achievements in the service of others.)  ‘It was so beautiful, Gabrielle could hardly bear to cut into it at first. But by the end of her party, she was sharing it with all her friends,' Clair adds. ‘The wonderful thing about Baking A Smile is that it understands that siblings are just as deserving as their disabled brothers and sisters.' There is no cure for MS but treatments are increasingly effective and Sophie's response to the drugs she was prescribed was so positive that within weeks she was feeling better, ‘which further enabled me to convince myself that there wasn't anything wrong'.  ‘That was when I first admitted that something had to give - and that something was going to be my business, because my arms had become so weak I could no longer roll out the cake icing,' she says. ‘And the most important thing was preserving my stamina for Benji and Millie.' The diagnosis was devastating - ‘I thought my world was ending,' Sophie admits - and inevitably life-changing, but remarkably, in the battle to stabilise her health, she has found a different way to bring untold pleasure to those who deserve it most. She launched into a whirlwind of tasks, juggling looking after a toddler lunch ideas 1 year old and a baby with running her business and organising a house move. She also decided that she and James should go ahead with their long-postponed wedding.  Forced to go on maternity leave early, she enrolled on a cupcake-making course ‘because I'm not someone who likes to sit still'. Soon afterwards, she made cakes for a charity event, which led to a few orders ‘and within months, I was launching my business'. Sophie was 22 when she met her exhibition sales manager husband James and 25 when they had their first child, Benji, now eight. Two years later, while pregnant with Millie, the first signs of ill health surfaced.  Once Millie was born in October 2010, the leg and hip pains Sophie had been experiencing disappeared. But in the summer of 2011, they returned with a vengeance. This time, both feet were numb and she had stabbing pains all over her body.  When Freyja Lingard was diagnosed with Hodgkin's T-cell lymphoma - a type of blood cancer - five years ago, she was plunged into an intensive treatment regime that impacted not just on her life, but her whole family's.  ‘I don't feel sorry for Talia, because she knows no different, but Gabrielle has often had to miss out on treats and days out, so having a cake baked especially for her was our way of saying, "Thank you for being Talia's sister,"' she says.  ‘There is nothing more uplifting than the look of pure delight on someone's face when they set eyes on a cake made just for them,' said Sophie Ford who started cake-baking business Sophie's Delights four years ago The idea was never for Sophie to bake the cakes herself permanently - ‘I knew that would be too much for me' - but she was determined to bake the launch offering for Baking A Smile, ‘because I wanted to experience what we were setting out to do for myself just one time'.  The consequence of Sophie's relentless activity was a relapse of the MS by October 2012 (85 per cent of cases of MS are of ‘relapsing remitting' type - patients have distinct attacks of symptoms, which then fade and return at a later date).  The bakers, who sign up with Baking A Smile through the website, donate their ingredients and deliver the cakes themselves, which keeps running costs to a minimum (the only rules are that bakers, who tend to be professionals or hobbyists, have a health and hygiene certificate and liability insurance).