A POPULAR CAKE shop is looking to keep growing in the New Year after getting into the festive spirit by raising more than £4,000 for people in need.

Finch Bakery in Great Harwood, run by twin sisters Rachel and Lauren Finch, has raised the money by holding a raffle featuring several prizes, including a Malteser Christmas pudding cake.

This has topped off a successful year for the shop which has seen them attract customers from across the country and reach 32,000 followers on Instagram.

The business is to expand in the future after signing for a new industrial kitchen in Accrington, but the shop will remain at its current home in Queen Street, Great Harwood.

The money raised is being split between Age UK Blackburn With Darwen and The Free Project, a charity based in Blackburn which helps the homeless.

VIDEO: Crowds queue around the block for CAKE JARS as twins' bakery sells out in just 45 minutes

Rachel, 26, said: “We are from Blackburn so wanted to help people in the local area.

“We’re quite charitable anyway, and it’s Christmas time, it’s just a nice thing to do.

“We didn’t expect to raise that much at all, we set a target of £1,500 at first but it just kept on growing.

“The last few days were especially busy, we raised an extra £400 in the last few hours.

“We’re so proud and can’t thank everyone enough.”

Several local businesses also got involved by donating prizes for the raffle including three-course meals, shopping vouchers and hair treatments.

Customers entered by making a minimum £2 donation to an online fundraising page, and altogether 1,335 people donated to raise a total of £4,406.

Main prizes for the raffle included hampers filled with goods from Finch Bakery along with donations from the business.

The shop also held mini competitions throughout giving people the chance to enter draws for cakes if they donated within certain time periods.

The shop has stayed busy after seeing queues out the doors in the summer months.

Rachel said she hopes business will continue to improve in the New Year and the new industrial kitchen will bring in more business.

She said: “We’re always busy, but we had a quiet first few weeks in December.

“But since then it’s been mega, mega busy, we’ve had a lot of people coming in for Secret Santa gifts or last day presents.

“Everything that we’ve been selling has been going really well.

“We’re hoping the new kitchen will help us do more online and do some deliveries.

“To begin with we’re just going to have two people we know helping us out to see how it goes.

“But hopefully all will keep going well and we’ll be creating more jobs in the next few months.”

The business opened in April 2016 and has grown from making up to 40 cupcakes and 10 cake jars a day to baking up to 300 cupcakes, 100 cake jars, 80 brownies, 80 cookies, 20 ‘cakeaways’ and 30 large jars a day.

They also make several weddings cakes and birthday cakes each week.

The bakery carried our fundraising earlier this year at Mother’s Day for East Lancashire Hospice.