Kati Kinley has joined the team at the Isle of Man Home of Rest for Old Horses. She is in charge of running the cafe and making all the baked goods and savouries in the home’s tea rooms. She has only been there since October but already her sausage rolls have achieved cult status.

She says: ‘The sausage rolls are an absolute blast - people are now coming early so they get them before they sell out – I’ve had three messages from people this week saying “please can you save me some” – they’re flying out.

‘We’ve had some really wonderful reviews from people.’

A few weeks ago, a call went out on the Old Horses’ Home Facebook page for donations towards buying a new oven for the cafe, and the response was amazing.

Kati says: ‘We’re literally going to go and order a new oven today so it will be here next week.

‘I can’t thank people enough. We got the money in a week and there were so many donations from across as well as from the island. It was incredible.’

Like many things that happen in life, running a cafe wasn’t something Kati had ever intended to do.

She says: ‘I just fell into it. I was coming back on the ferry and a friend of mine, Andy, who has the Cornerhouse coffee shop in Port St Mary, was asking if anybody wanted to come and help him out there.

She thought she would give it a go even though, as she says, she wasn’t exactly well qualified for the job: ‘I’d never worked in a coffee shop before and I don’t drink coffee so I knew absolutely nothing about it at all.’

She goes on: ‘It was the week before the Manx Grand Prix so I was thrown in at the deep end, I had to learn all the coffees but he had a chef then so it was pretty easy. The chef left in September and I thought well we haven’t got many cakes so I’ll start doing some cakes maybe, see what they’re like, and it just progressed from there.

‘I just found some nice recipes, adapted a few and it just grew from that.’

In fact the cakes worked out so well that she also started a small baking business from home, Kati’s Bakes, and her Sticky Ginger Cake is now on sale at the Good Health Store in Port Erin and Radcliffe’s butchers in Castletown.

Her life took another turn when an old friend, Barbara Cucchi, took over as manager of the Old Horses’ Home, following the retirement of Jill Moore.

Kati says: ‘Barbara had just taken over here and she messaged me and said: “Please come and bake me some cakes.”

‘So I baked some cakes and arrived on the Saturday morning with them. I also volunteered to help in the cafe - just for the week over half term. And then, basically, Barbara wouldn’t let me leave.’

She asked Kati to take over running the cafe. It is only open at weekends at this time of year but from Easter they plan to open the cafe for five days a week so Kati is looking for core staff and volunteers to come and help.

Alongside the famous sausage rolls the cafe serves vegetarian quiches and paninis with salad, for a quick an simple meal, and of course lots of cake.

Kati uses all Laxey flour for her baking, unless she is making a gluten-free cake. The sausage meat for the sausage rolls all comes from Radcliffe Butchers in Castletown and she adds flavours including, honey and mustard, red onion and thyme, pork and apple and Welsh dragon. She is also planning a Branston pickle flavour which should go down well.

Like many people, Kati has fallen under the spell of the Old Horses’ Home.

She says: ‘I absolutely love it here. I walk round the fields with Barbara in the morning, checking the horses and I help with whatever needs doing. You do get involved in it.’

She has also taken over looking after the home’s 10 chickens which give her a plentiful supply of fresh eggs for her cakes and quiches: ‘I get so many eggs from them I said I’d look after them, so they’re my domain. I love my chickens.’

Kati is married to Chris Kinley the well known motorsport commentator, a job which takes him all over Ireland and the UK in the summer, as well as the TT and Southern 100 on the island. This means the Kinleys living in their motorhome for most of the summer and in recent years they have been letting out their home in Port Erin to visitors while they travel.

At the moment the motorhome is parked at the Old Horses’ Home and Kati stays in it at the weekends so that she’s handy for the cafe.

As Barbara eats only vegan and gluten-free, Kati is also experimenting with making cakes to suit different diets. She says: ‘I’ve found a nice little recipe for banana cake with chocolate chips in it which is gluten free and vegan so that’s my go-to at the moment.

‘My ginger cake has always been vegan but I’m going to try and make a carrot cake today that’s vegan too so I’m hoping that’s going to work.’

That was last Friday when I spoke to her and when I looked at the Isle of Man Home of Rest for Old Horses’ Facebook page on Sunday morning someone had commented: ‘Delicious food late this morning. Sausage rolls to die for and the carrot cake was so yummy.’

It looks like Kati has another baking hit on her hands.