Esther James and the Sweet Taste of Home

Before the sugar flowers and celebration cakes, there was fruit with salt.

A small childhood pleasure, simple enough to need no recipe. For Esther James, it holds the beginnings of something she hopes people will recognise at this year’s Barbados Food and Rum Festival. She is keeping the finished dessert to herself for now. The memory behind it, however, is one she is happy to share.

Meet Esther James at Liquid Gold Feast, where she’s turning the flavours of a Bajan childhood into dessert.

“What I’d love is for someone to take that first bite, immediately recognise the flavour and have that little nostalgic moment of, ‘Oh my gosh, I know this!’”

It is a lovely ambition for a chef whose work can make people pause before picking up a fork. There is the delight of looking, of wondering how she made something edible look quite like that. Then comes the pleasure of discovering what is underneath.

Esther brings her own warmth to the occasion. With her ready smile and lightness of spirit, the pastry chef behind With Love Cakery makes the business of dessert feel inviting. Her creations may take patience and precision. The happiness they give is wonderfully uncomplicated.

Her own appetite for sweetness began with the creamy comforts of childhood. Sago and milk powder are among the tastes she remembers. Ovaltine and Milo were particular favourites, made sweeter still with condensed milk. She can trace her love of rich, creamy chocolate desserts back to those early indulgences.

Christmas and Sunday lunches brought a different sort of discovery. In the kitchen with her mother, she explored recipes from international cookbooks, finding that familiar room could open onto a much wider world.

The curiosity stayed. So did a respect for getting the foundations right.

“I’m particular about mastering a recipe in its original form before I start putting my own spin on it.”

That care has carried her a long way. Esther studied at the Barbados Hospitality Institute and went on to study hotel management at the University of the West Indies. Work in the island’s luxury villas helped build her experience before she launched With Love By Esther James in December 2011.

One of her earliest novelty cakes was a Coach handbag made for her mother’s birthday. A minibus and a Berger Paints cake followed as she learnt what she could persuade cake to become. Nearly fifteen years after starting the business, she is still enjoying the possibilities.

Her professional biography names work with Rihanna, Simon Cowell and Justin Timberlake, alongside training under chefs Michel Ernots and Amaury Guichon. Her designs have also appeared in wedding publications including MunaLuchi and Brides. It is an impressive reach for a business that began with orders from family and friends.

The pleasure she describes today remains close to the work itself. At With Love Cakery, she has been creating realistic fruit desserts, the sort that invite a second look before the first taste. She loves shaping edible material into something recognisable and seeing the response when a client’s cake becomes part of a celebration.

“In a nutshell, the art is what keeps me here.”

Behind the pretty finish is someone who has made peace with things going wrong. The younger Esther wanted a recipe to work the first time. Experience has taught her to stay with the attempts that do not.

“The more I fail at a recipe, the more determined I am to understand what went wrong and how I can improve it.”

For someone whose finished work can appear so effortless, it is a revealing admission. Patience had to be learnt. So did the confidence to experiment without knowing exactly where the idea would lead.

“Honestly, I don’t think my younger self ever imagined becoming a pastry chef,” she says. “So in many ways my entire career is something my younger self would never have dared to dream of.”

At Food and Rum, that confidence begins with a local ingredient. Esther tastes it and smells it, considering what might bring out its character. Sweetness needs balance. A little salt might sharpen the flavour. Acidity could lift it. Bitterness, spice or fresh herbs might take it somewhere unexpected.

Texture gets its turn too. She likes to give a smooth dessert something crisp to meet, a little crunch that changes the next mouthful. Each choice has to earn its place. The final test is much less technical.

“When I take that final bite and my immediate reaction is ‘mmm’… I’ve got it!”

Festival guests have supplied their own verdicts. In her first year at the event, Esther made a piña colada bread pudding. Afterwards, emails and private messages arrived asking her to bring it back. The dessert had gone from her kitchen into somebody else’s happy memory.

“I’ve always loved seeing people enjoy my food, and moments like that remind me why I do this.”

For the 2026 festival, she is reaching further back into her own memories. A familiar Bajan ingredient will meet the flavour of fruit with salt, reworked through texture and technique. She is leaving the ingredient unnamed, allowing just enough of a hint to make the wait interesting.

The idea feels particularly at home in a year when Barbados celebrates sixty years of independence. Among the many ways an island remembers itself are the small things people grew up eating, flavours so familiar that recognition arrives before explanation.

Esther wants to catch that moment.

There will be time to admire the presentation, to wonder what she has made and how she has made it. Then the fork goes in, the flavour settles and something familiar comes back.

For all the lovely things Esther can fashion from sweetness, this year she is hoping to serve a little piece of childhood. One bite should be enough to find your way home.

Esther is keeping her dessert a surprise, but guests can discover the taste of home she has created at Liquid Gold Feast – These Fields and Hills on Sunday, 8 November, at Carifesta House. Her desserts will form part of an evening celebrating Barbados through food, flavour and creativity.

Barbados Food and Rum Festival Events

Tickets for Liquid Gold Feast are $350 BBD, while a combo ticket for Rise & Rum and Liquid Gold Feast is $500 BBD. The Barbados Food and Rum Festival also includes Oistins Under the Stars on Thursday, November 5 and International Chef Demos on Friday, November 6, both free to attend; the Rum Route on Friday, November 6 at $200 BBD; and Rise & Rum on Saturday, November 7 at $250 BBD. Tickets are available from CS Pharmacy, Bridgetown; Nu Look Company, Roebuck Street; Mpowered, Sky Mall; Très Classe Boutique, Sheraton Mall; A&B Music Supplies, Wildey; Visual Oasis, Six Roads; the Lotto Booth in Speightstown, opposite the Bus Terminal; and the National Cultural Foundation, West Terrace. Tickets can also be purchased online at TicketNation.bb.

For more information about the Barbados Food and Rum Festival follow foodandrumbarbados on Instagram (PR)