SOME turn to therapy in times of need. Others phone their friends. But for queen of the kitchen Delia Smith, there's only one proven way to lift the blues - cake.

A hefty wedge of cake may not chase your woes away, but football fan Delia reckons the cheap and satisfying process of baking a cake is a great mood lifter.

With this in mind, she has brought out a special edition of Delia's Cakes to mark the 35th anniversary of the release of her Book Of Cakes.

Delia's Cakes will include some trusty favourites like old-fashioned cherry cake and coffee and walnut cake, as well as some new recipes. And 90% of the recipes can now be made using gluten-free alternatives.

"The whole affair from start to finish is about supreme unadulterated pleasure," writes Delia of baking. "Or as someone once said, when you offer homemade cake to anyone, it never fails to put a smile on their face.

"Actually setting about making a cake, allowing your creative powers to come into play, knowing all those smiles that await you, has a kind of hidden social agenda - it's cheaper than therapy and much more pleasurable."

In these tough times, Delia believes that rather than reaching for shop-bought sweets it's more important than ever to put on our pinnies, crack out our cake tins and begin baking.

"If I might put a positive spin on our current climate of austerity, what homemade cakes have got going for them is that they provide you with something really luxurious at very little cost," she writes.

"A chain coffee-house muffin circa 2013 can cost six or seven times as much as a vastly superior homemade version."

Keeley Bolger