Sugar KING

Rich Myers, aka Mr Sprinkles, has been delivering sweet fixes to the people of Leeds for over a decade - and now he’s released a cookbook featuring his bonkers bakes

By REBECCA PITCAIRN

Not long before the pandemic, the idea that you could order your favourite slab of chocolate cake to be delivered to your door at midnight seemed a little absurd. But before Deliveroo and Just Eat, there was Get Baked. Rich Myers set up the dessert delivery brand over ten years ago, from an idea he had to ‘fill the gap in the market’ while at Manchester Metropolitan University.

“Students would be enjoying themselves and drinking and whatever until the early hours and then they’d get the munchies,” he tells me. “Back then you could get

Chinese delivered and that sort of thing, but no-one was delivering cake.”

Initially Rich would bake from his mum’s kitchen, but then moved to a warehouse, or what we’d now refer to as a ‘dark kitchen’, in Leeds. The brand soon gained a loyal customer base and cult social media following thanks to Rich’s bonkers creations and witty photo captions.

In 2015, Rich put baking to one side for reasons, he tells me, he’d rather not go into, but the birth of his daughter, in 2021, was the catalyst for him to make a comeback with the opening of his first physical store in Headingley.

“It made me realise that I should be spending my time doing what I love,” says Rich, whose wife is expecting their second child in June. “Fortunately, we already had a cult following in Leeds, so when the shop opened there was a readymade audience waiting in anticipation. It was really successful from the outset.”

Rich even managed to turn a sticky situation with Trading Standards into a positive after he was reported for using sprinkles from America containing the E127 food colouring, also known as Erythrosine, which is banned in the UK apart from in glazed cherries. A video with him ranting about the complaint subsequently went viral and gained him the nickname, “Mr Sprinkles”.

“I mean it was all totally ridiculous, I didn’t even know you could get illegal sprinkles and it’s not like these were contraband – you could buy them in sweet shops in London,” he explains. “Trading Standards were just doing their job and they were perfectly nice about it, but we had to stop using the sprinkles, which meant we couldn’t sell some of our products so it was a real pain.”

Desperate to find an alternative to the less vibrant sprinkles made in Britain, Rich decided to invent his own, which sell under the side brand Expen$ive sprinkles for £12 per 160g bottle.

“A lot of what we sell has a particular aesthetic and, to me, you can’t get that from British sprinkles – they just don’t look the same,” he says. “So, we now have our own made in Costa Rica and they’ve been tested and they’re legal. They make us a very special blend which isn’t available anywhere else in the world.”

‘Sprinklegate’ contributed to demand for Rich’s wacky bakes skyrocketing and Get Baked has since expanded its delivery nationwide. It also spurred interest from publishers and Rich’s first cookbook featuring his most popular creations, including the Raspberry Glazed Donut Cookies at the centre of ‘Sprinklegate’, the brand’s famous pies and, for those who dare to try, a step-bystep guide to the signature bake, Bruce – a 24-layer giant chocolate sponge and ganache cake – was published in March. “Bruce is what we’re best known for and we sell lots of it,” says Rich. “It will be interesting to see the results of people attempting it at home as it’s not easy.”

But contrary to popular belief, the cake is not named after Bruce Bogtrotter – the character in Roald Dahl’s Matilda, who steals a slice of Miss Trunchbull’s cake and is punished by being forced to eat a huge chocolate cake in front of the whole school.