A WOMAN broke down in tears after overcoming a serious illness to triumph at an international cake competition.

Tara Wilcox was delighted to win silver in her category of the Cake International competition in Birmingham.

The 38-year-old was up against 22 other bakers in the Carved Novelty Cake category.

Ms Wilcox, from The Beeches, in Upton, made her first decorative cake for her mother, who cared for her when she became ill.

"I baked it on 18 November, 2011, to say thank you - because she looked after me for six months," she said.

The former nurse contracted a viral bug which caused her to lose so much weight that she had to use a wheelchair.

"I was in and out of hospital, they couldn't figure it out, and my weight went so low my legs couldn't support my body," she said.

"My family thought I was dying at one point. I had a really long struggle for three years and had to retrain my gut."

She started baking to help her recovery but discovered a passion for cake making during the process.

Ms Wilcox said she is still a hobby baker and was left speechless for half-an-hour after being told she had won silver.

"There were three or four tables of cakes, that's why I was so shocked to win silver," she said.

"My first competition entry, last November, took four weeks to do. I had three days to make this cake.

"I spent three long days on it, I worked through the early hours of the morning.

"On the Thursday I was in floods of tears, I was like 'I'm not going to pull this off'. It was during the stacking stage and it was crumbling.

"But I kept going as my friends and family said don't walk away from it, go back. I was so sleep deprived."

The mother-of-one modelled her cake on the children's book character Peter Rabbit, marking 150 years since Beatrix Potter's birth.

The cakes in Ms Wilcox's category were awarded either gold, silver or bronze; five cakes won gold, six won silver, five won bronze and seven won merit.