You could say Millie O'Donovan has been a cooking star since the tender age of two and a half.
Her tendrils of curls and smiling face look up adoringly at her mother Nessa on the front cover of her 2013 cookbook Apron Strings as she decorates a cake.
Now 15, as well as creating her own beautiful confections for friends and family, she regularly features in the content that Nessa, our popular food writer and columnist in Irish Country Living, creates for her print recipe shoots and reels online.
Visiting Millie recently at home, just outside Moate in Co Westmeath, the first things I spy coming in the door are cakes – plural. On one side of the vintage-styled family kitchen counter is a beautifully iced chocolate cake; on the other is a courgette cake with cream cheese icing and berries ready to be photographed and filmed for Nessa’s Home Nurse column.
It turns out the chocolate cake has been made by Millie specially for our visit, and it tastes just as good as it looks. “It’s the chocolate cake from Matilda the Musical. Juliet Sear made it for the movie,” explains Millie. “She shares lots of tips for baking on Instagram, and I like watching her videos.”
Apparently, Juliet, a renowned baker, author and food stylist, had to make about 80 of these cakes for the film because of its prominence in a big scene where Bruce Bogtrotter eats the cake, take after take, presumably. It’s a recipe Millie loves, and her proud mum, Nessa, says she has made it at least 100 times at this stage. It involves making a ganache as part of the chocolate frosting that Millie has expertly piped on the chocolate cake.
Millie O'Donovan (15) with her ‘Matilda’ cake at home near Moate, Co Westmeath. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
Kitchen inspiration
The youngest of a family of four, Millie has been watching her mother create and test out recipes in the kitchen since she was a toddler with her brothers. She reckons the first thing she ever made was her granny’s bun mix, and since then, the teenager has tried lots of recipes, even adapting and experimenting to suit new flavours and ingredients to come up with her own. There is certainly an artistic flair to baking, and Millie embraces that.
“I like helping with the styling and the setting up of the food [shoots] and decorating the food,” she says.
While she does make savoury meals from time to time, baking is where Millie’s real passion lies, and it’s something she is keen to develop in the future.
“I like to bake cakes. I like to bake buns with buttercream. I love the piping,” adds Millie, who is a student of Moate Community School. “I also like to try out different textures and flavours.”
Indeed, her mother compliments her daughter’s preciseness, patience and speed with piping, which is much better than her own.
“If there’s piping involved, I’d normally ask Millie to do it,” says Nessa, smiling.
“She is a great help to me. Millie has a brilliant eye and a genuine interest. Often she would be thinking about something [for a shoot or video] and would come to me and say, ‘If you record such a thing, you should try this’, or she’d send me reels [for inspiration].”
Asked who she follows or admires in the baking world, Millie immediately refers to Una Leonard from 2210 Patisserie in nearby Mullingar, her mammy, and of course, Juliet Sear for her showstopping cakes. She is also a fan of television shows like River Cottage, The Pioneer Woman and Magnolia Table.
Millie icing a courgette cake in the family kitchen near Moate, Co Westmeath. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
Cake shoot
The mother-daughter duo make use of bountiful fruit in the garden and the fields at the back of the house for shoots and short clips.
“We usually head off, myself Millie and Pip, the dog, up the field or out the back to shoot the reels or photograph a recipe,” explains Nessa, “depending on what it is for and the time of year.”
They made great use of buttercup-covered fields recently for a reel for Ballymaloe mayonnaise, even though the hot weather did provide other challenges for filming food.
Up the field with the birds singing around us, it’s easy to see why they are such a good team. Millie helps with the colour palette of the shoot, styles the food and is a dab hand with the props and what looks good on screen to capture that country vintage look Nessa is known for.
Millie explains how she thinks about the lighting, the placement of food and the camera angles. It’s clear a huge amount of work goes into a short, slick clip of just 30 seconds.
“So much has to happen before you get to the recording stage,” adds Nessa, who develops the recipe and tests it extensively before it is published in print or online.
Millie is a great help at this stage too and has altered some of Nessa’s recipes for the better because of her palate and taste combinations, her mum points out.
Unsurprisingly, given her baking prowess at such a young age, Millie’s creations are in big demand from friends and family for life’s big occasions and milestones. She shows us beautiful iced daisy-shaped shortbread cookies she made recently as wedding favours.
Millie's cake creations. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
By experimenting, she discovered that by cutting them out and putting them in the freezer for 15 minutes before going into the oven, they hold their shape better before the buttercream is piped on.
“I put a circle in each corner and spread them inwards to make a petal shape by piping before dyeing the middle of the petal a different colour,” Millie explains.
Another memorable cake project involved devising a recipe for her grandfather’s 80th birthday cake. A lover of citrus tastes, the talented teenager came up with a cáca made of layers of lemon drizzle with lemon buttercream, covered in white ganache with an Eton mess and lemon curd meringue on top.
“I like seeing the end product,” Millie admits, smiling shyly.
For novices or anyone who wants to try their hand at home baking, her advice is to begin with something simple, read the recipe carefully and follow it step by step. An accurate scales and a good working oven are essential too.
“Just start with a simple recipe and keep doing it and practising until you get better, and then you can move on to bigger or more difficult recipes,” she advises.
With her Transition Year year set to begin in autumn, Millie is keen to get work experience in set design or food styling in TV or film, something she’d love to pursue in the future, along, perhaps, with her own bakery.
Whatever avenue she pursues, Millie is well on the way to being a cake boss.
This article has been updated on 1 August, 2025.
You could say Millie O'Donovan has been a cooking star since the tender age of two and a half.
Her tendrils of curls and smiling face look up adoringly at her mother Nessa on the front cover of her 2013 cookbook Apron Strings as she decorates a cake.
Now 15, as well as creating her own beautiful confections for friends and family, she regularly features in the content that Nessa, our popular food writer and columnist in Irish Country Living, creates for her print recipe shoots and reels online.
Visiting Millie recently at home, just outside Moate in Co Westmeath, the first things I spy coming in the door are cakes – plural. On one side of the vintage-styled family kitchen counter is a beautifully iced chocolate cake; on the other is a courgette cake with cream cheese icing and berries ready to be photographed and filmed for Nessa’s Home Nurse column.
It turns out the chocolate cake has been made by Millie specially for our visit, and it tastes just as good as it looks. “It’s the chocolate cake from Matilda the Musical. Juliet Sear made it for the movie,” explains Millie. “She shares lots of tips for baking on Instagram, and I like watching her videos.”
Apparently, Juliet, a renowned baker, author and food stylist, had to make about 80 of these cakes for the film because of its prominence in a big scene where Bruce Bogtrotter eats the cake, take after take, presumably. It’s a recipe Millie loves, and her proud mum, Nessa, says she has made it at least 100 times at this stage. It involves making a ganache as part of the chocolate frosting that Millie has expertly piped on the chocolate cake.
Millie O'Donovan (15) with her ‘Matilda’ cake at home near Moate, Co Westmeath. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
Kitchen inspiration
The youngest of a family of four, Millie has been watching her mother create and test out recipes in the kitchen since she was a toddler with her brothers. She reckons the first thing she ever made was her granny’s bun mix, and since then, the teenager has tried lots of recipes, even adapting and experimenting to suit new flavours and ingredients to come up with her own. There is certainly an artistic flair to baking, and Millie embraces that.
“I like helping with the styling and the setting up of the food [shoots] and decorating the food,” she says.
While she does make savoury meals from time to time, baking is where Millie’s real passion lies, and it’s something she is keen to develop in the future.
“I like to bake cakes. I like to bake buns with buttercream. I love the piping,” adds Millie, who is a student of Moate Community School. “I also like to try out different textures and flavours.”
Indeed, her mother compliments her daughter’s preciseness, patience and speed with piping, which is much better than her own.
“If there’s piping involved, I’d normally ask Millie to do it,” says Nessa, smiling.
“She is a great help to me. Millie has a brilliant eye and a genuine interest. Often she would be thinking about something [for a shoot or video] and would come to me and say, ‘If you record such a thing, you should try this’, or she’d send me reels [for inspiration].”
Asked who she follows or admires in the baking world, Millie immediately refers to Una Leonard from 2210 Patisserie in nearby Mullingar, her mammy, and of course, Juliet Sear for her showstopping cakes. She is also a fan of television shows like River Cottage, The Pioneer Woman and Magnolia Table.
Millie icing a courgette cake in the family kitchen near Moate, Co Westmeath. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
Cake shoot
The mother-daughter duo make use of bountiful fruit in the garden and the fields at the back of the house for shoots and short clips.
“We usually head off, myself Millie and Pip, the dog, up the field or out the back to shoot the reels or photograph a recipe,” explains Nessa, “depending on what it is for and the time of year.”
They made great use of buttercup-covered fields recently for a reel for Ballymaloe mayonnaise, even though the hot weather did provide other challenges for filming food.
Up the field with the birds singing around us, it’s easy to see why they are such a good team. Millie helps with the colour palette of the shoot, styles the food and is a dab hand with the props and what looks good on screen to capture that country vintage look Nessa is known for.
Millie explains how she thinks about the lighting, the placement of food and the camera angles. It’s clear a huge amount of work goes into a short, slick clip of just 30 seconds.
“So much has to happen before you get to the recording stage,” adds Nessa, who develops the recipe and tests it extensively before it is published in print or online.
Millie is a great help at this stage too and has altered some of Nessa’s recipes for the better because of her palate and taste combinations, her mum points out.
Unsurprisingly, given her baking prowess at such a young age, Millie’s creations are in big demand from friends and family for life’s big occasions and milestones. She shows us beautiful iced daisy-shaped shortbread cookies she made recently as wedding favours.
Millie's cake creations. \ Lorraine O’Sullivan
By experimenting, she discovered that by cutting them out and putting them in the freezer for 15 minutes before going into the oven, they hold their shape better before the buttercream is piped on.
“I put a circle in each corner and spread them inwards to make a petal shape by piping before dyeing the middle of the petal a different colour,” Millie explains.
Another memorable cake project involved devising a recipe for her grandfather’s 80th birthday cake. A lover of citrus tastes, the talented teenager came up with a cáca made of layers of lemon drizzle with lemon buttercream, covered in white ganache with an Eton mess and lemon curd meringue on top.
“I like seeing the end product,” Millie admits, smiling shyly.
For novices or anyone who wants to try their hand at home baking, her advice is to begin with something simple, read the recipe carefully and follow it step by step. An accurate scales and a good working oven are essential too.
“Just start with a simple recipe and keep doing it and practising until you get better, and then you can move on to bigger or more difficult recipes,” she advises.
With her Transition Year year set to begin in autumn, Millie is keen to get work experience in set design or food styling in TV or film, something she’d love to pursue in the future, along, perhaps, with her own bakery.
Whatever avenue she pursues, Millie is well on the way to being a cake boss.
This article has been updated on 1 August, 2025.
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