For those lucky enough to get their hands on elusive bags of flour, the lockdown has proved the perfect time to work on those baking skills.

KentOnline put a call out for photos of people's best - and worst - lockdown bakes, and the responses certainly did not disappoint.

Here's a selection of some of the most weird and wonderful entries from across Kent. You can vote for your favourite at the bottom of the article.

Up first is Charlotte Bareham's homage to Joe Exotic, the moustached and mulleted star of hit Netflix documentary series Tiger King.

Inside her cake is a nod to Exotic's infamous big cat obsession; layers of tiger print-like sponge, made by marbling orange and black cake batter in a tin.

"I made the skin coloured butter cream using Biscoff spread, as it’s tricky to get the right shade using food colouring," revealed the baker, from Sittingbourne.

"The hair was achieved using a JEM 234 nozzle which creates hair or grass piping. The features are just hand moulded by eye out of fondant."

Seeing her fiance Tony Allard, owner of Herne Bay tattoo parlour Studio27, was missing his job, Lucy Cuckoo from Beltinge decided to bake up an edible version of his beloved tattoo machine.

Inside are three square, salted caramel sponge cakes with a salted caramel buttercream filling.

"It was just to cheer him up as he is missing all his tattoo clients and being in his studio," explained Lucy.

"I slightly carved the cake to shape and covered in a thin layer of butter cream, then the icing.

"I made the tattoo pen from icing and Haribo shoelace sweets, before piping the writing on."

Baker Sarah Callow, from Dargate near Faversham, pulled out all the stops when she created a special cake to mark Captain Tom Moore's 100th birthday on Thursday.

The mum-of-two says it took three days for her to finish the two-feet-tall work of art.

"My boys are now 19 and 25 and tell me they are too old for birthday cakes," said Sarah, 52. "So I decided to make one for a special person - and they don't come any more special than Captain Tom."

She needed some last-minute editing when it was confirmed the Army veteran was being made an honorary colonel for raising £32 million for the NHS.

Her masterpiece is complete with a sound box hidden inside, which plays the war hero's number one song You'll Never Walk Alone.

Kay Speed from Faversham also whipped up a work-themed surprise for her brother Tom, after his 50th birthday celebrations were cancelled.

Tom is a site manager for building firm JSP and typically spends many hours in his van, but is currently on furlough.

"He needed a treat seeing as his big birthday bash was cancelled, so a for a laugh with this caricature of his van," said Kay.

Her beautifully crafted dessert was sculpted from vanilla sponge, with jam and buttercream filling, and fondant icing

While Kent is certainly packed with talent, there are a few people out there who could perhaps stand to watch a few more episodes of Bake Off.

Julie Muggridge submitted a photo of her blackened lemon drizzle cake.

Despite removing it from the over to find it was burnt, she went ahead and topped it anyway. But sadly, it looks a little too far gone to be saved even by drizzle.

Meanwhile, Claire Pursey's attempt at millionaire's shortbread would undoubtedly have been delicious...had she not forgotten to bake the base.

But with the same gung-ho spirit as displayed by Julie, she served it up anyway (upside-down) and said it proved a big hit with her children.

When Vicki Bygraves' daughter Ella requested a "chocolate cake with doughnuts on" for her 10th birthday, she rose to the challenge with a spectacular, sweet-covered showstopper.

The talented mum gave the cake impressive height by stacking doughtnuts on skewers. She also created the illusion of M&Ms spilling onto the cake from a packet, by covering a straw in melted chocolate, studding this with M&Ms, then refrigerating it before carefully assembling it as the centrepiece.

"Ella loves chocolate, sweets and doughnuts and I like being creative so I came up with that cake," said Vicki, from Westgate on Sea.

"It was a four-level chocolate sponge with Kinder chocolate flavour icing."

Emma Lishman's mum opted for something more traditional, for her daughter's birthday.

Victoria sponges are thought to have been invented back during Queen Victoria's reign in 1843, when the invention of the baking powder helped bakers create lighter, richer cakes than before.

But Emma's mum brought the 177-year-old treat bang up to date by decorating it with a "social distancing" theme, with sheep lined around the cake at sensible intervals behind a sign reading 'queue here please'.

There are some cakes that, while not necessarily showstoppers, had to be included based on their ingredients alone.

While Eve Hanley's entry may look like a plain chocolate sponge, her cake has one very unusual ingredient: kidney beans.

The canned legumes are used in place of flour in Eve's unusual recipe, which also includes a dash of coffee.

"Definitely try it," urged the Faversham mum. "It's really light but tastes like a fudge cake. Anything to avoid flour hunting and get a bit of goodness in the kids."

Roz Sissons' Nutella chocolate brownies are very much deserving of a mention, as is Anzelika Djacenko's fruit-covered coffee cake made for her husband's birthday.

Zoe Reed, from Barming near Maidstone, took an alternative twist on two classics - combining good, old-fashioned flapjack with decadent millionaire's shortbread, to make millionaire's flapjack.

With a base of buttery, syrupy oats, topped with a very sizeable layer of caramel, topped with marbled chocolate, these look good enough to beat any lockdown blues.

For more ideas on how to spend your spare time getting creative, see our round-up of Kent's best DIY lockdown projects - ranging from a home "pub garden" to an impressive assault course and a cosy reading den.

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