THE current mania for home baking is fuelling a thriving black market in scarce ingredients, it has emerged.

Following the success of TV’s The Great British Bake Off manufacturing cakes has replaced breast feeding at the top of the ‘Things You Have To Do Or You’re a Shit Mother’ chart.

Nikki Ellis, a homemaker from Godalming, said: “My friends looked at me with jealous awe as I told them how I put the finishing touches to a lemon drizzle cake even as my last child was crowning.

“But as more and more women started baking, ingredients fell into short supply. I went from baking 14 dozen cupcakes a day to just two dozen and then a solitary Victoria Sponge.

“One day, my 7 year old Jacinta came home from school in tears, begging ‘Why can’t I have Type II diabetes like my friends, mummy?’”

Like many in the same predicament, Nikki Ellis looked to alternative ingredients, but Muscovado sugar and wholemeal flour proved unsatisfactory.

She continued: “I drive to Northampton, where I suck off an acne-ridden Greggs employee called Darren in return for bleached flour and caster sugar.

“The hardest ingredient to get hold of now though is baking powder. I am currently paying around £100 a gram and the quality is hit and miss.”

DCI Norman Steele said: “As the street value of baking powder rockets, dealers are cutting it with cheaper substances, such as heroin.

“Some dealers are experimenting with designer baking powders which sell for up to £200 a gram. We analysed a batch to find it cut with Kirstie Allsopp’s dandruff.”