Following on from the cupcake wedding cake craze, the latest (and unlikely) trend we’ve picked up on from the US is, er... pie wedding cakes! In fact, we’ve already spotted one UK company specialising in them, offering sweet and savoury options: www.pieand.co.uk. "Why not go for small stands of 13 pies, and use them as a centrepiece for each table?" it says. Why not, indeed?

Whoopie pies - most popularly charac-terised by two three-inch rounds of chocolate cake, with cream filling - could be another big craze set to sweep America and have even emerged on to the shelves of Magnolia Bakery in New York, often credited with sparking the US cupcake craze. "Now, whoopie pies are migrating across the country, often appearing in the same speciality shops and grocery aisles that recently made room for cupcakes," wrote the New York Times.

Edging into futurology, we note that researchers have mapped the DNA of dozens of strains of yeast, including baking yeast, as reported in the journal Nature. This could lead to the development of better-tasting bakery products, said experts at the University of Nottingham.