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A Co Antrim grandmother with more than three million likes on TikTok has spoken about her passion for keeping traditional cooking alive for the next generation.
While the social media platform was initially best known for showcasing dance moves, Cheryl Smyth has amassed millions of views from across the world whipping up local favourites in her kitchen in Carrickfergus.
Some of the 58-year-old’s most popular videos include stew, roast dinners, braised steak, “marry me” chicken and sausage rolls, and attract viewers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and France as well as Northern Ireland.
Her bakes also include a chocolate cake inspired by the Roald Dahl book Matilda as well as traybakes, pineapple creams, scones, sticky toffee pudding, wheaten farls and treacle farls as well as old-school jam and coconut sponge and meringues.
Her channel Cheryl Bakes Cakes is growing by around 10,000 followers a month since she started in January 2024, going on to hit 100,000 by December, and now at almost 170,000. One of her first videos was surviving a gale during Storm Isla in January 2024, but soon expanded to cooking with the encouragement of her children.
Cheryl told the PA news agency she is incredibly touched by and motivated by followers who tell her she has taught them things their own parents were not able to.
“I’m just a person next door type, but I do things they can all relate to, and I’m teaching them how to cook, and how to cook good traditional meals on a budget,” she said.
“You’ll see my life going on in the background, my dogs, people walking in while I’m baking, my husband, it’s just a real person in a real kitchen making real food. I actually had a message recently from a girl who said her mum had passed suddenly, how she missed her and that actually I was teaching her things her mum never got the chance to do.
“I’ve had lots of those comments, that I’m the mummy someone didn’t have or the great aunt, and for me, that’s my measure of success when someone says that to me. I’m so grateful that just being me seems to connect with people.”
Cheryl, originally from Larne, also lived in Zambia and Canada as a child before her family returned to Northern Ireland.
She worked as a personal assistant before becoming a full-time mother when her first son was born, and has since also raised her birth children and foster children for the last 31 years. While many creators with growing followings on social media aim to make it their full-time job, Cheryl said she is focused on helping people develop their cooking skills.
She said she has also turned down scores of opportunities to collaborate with companies and sell products, which she says she has no plans to do.
“If you see me promoting a nice Chinese takeaway, I bought it. If I eat a nice Chinese takeaway I’ll talk about it, but I stay away from the paid promotion,” she said.
“I am not doing this for money, it’s just for enjoyment. Eating out is becoming a treat these days, so for me it’s about showing people how to easily feed their family well with really nice food that’s good for them, and saving your money to have a takeaway as a treat.
“That’s just how I was brought up and now I do it too.
“I’m always being asked about doing a cook book, but I just say this is my living cookbook, and you get to ask me questions and I can reply to you. I’m just not financially motivated at all.”
She has recently started a new series focused on being able to feed your family for a fiver, and has even teamed up with a butcher in Ballymena to create a £25 meat pack to help people cook on a budget.
Cheryl also said she is adapting to being recognised when she goes out, from people asking for pictures with her to telling her that they cooked her various recipes with great success.
“Nobody wants a smashed avocado any more, and a hundred ways to do it, they want a piece of soda bread and nice slice of ham,” she said.
“Our breads are so easy to make, it’s one bowl, no rising, no yeast, stirred with a knife, put in the oven or the griddle, and they’re incredible.
But she stressed: “I don’t want anybody to think I am something that I’m not – I’m just a normal girl in a house who knows how to cook, who was taught by my granny and my mum, and now I do it too.
“For me, it’s just good fun and I love what I’m doing.”
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