Soul food: Frances Atkins on her three-colour cake My mother and I had a very good little arrangement when I was a child. The deal was, she would make me clothes if I cooked the tea. My daisy fancy-dress outfit (above) was one of hers. My mother was a music teacher and very artistic. She felt it was important that my two brothers and I were able to look after ourselves, so she taught us to make scones and 'girdle' cakes. She always told me to make food look beautiful, so people would want to eat it before they actually tasted it. I started cooking the evening family meal when I was eight. I made cheese, having read how to in a book, and sold it to the local deli. We made ginger beer, and competed to grow the biggest radishes. I was known as Boss. When I was older I bulldozed my parents into throwing dinner parties I would cook for, attempting coq au vin and bœuf bourguignon. What sticks in my mind the most is my three-colour cake. I wanted the colourings to be natural so spent hours straining strawberry juice and spinach through muslin. It was going to be the best thing ever. Then, just as it was about to go into the oven, the bottom of the tin dropped out and the whole thing went all over the floor. For me, it was the end of the world.