“I don’t think you can just write a book,” says Una Leonard. “I think you need to have a reason behind everything that you do.”

For Leonard, author of the bestselling recipe book Sweet Therapy, the reason for a sequel came late last year when she was in the oncology ward of the Mater hospital in Dublin accompanying her mother, Pauline, to her chemotherapy treatment. Sitting there for hours, the pair were talking as they often would about life, family and Una’s business at 2210 Patisserie in Mullingar, where the baker and entrepreneur had found her niche selling cakes like, well, hot cakes.

A woman entered the ward with an unusual energy about her. “Joy was pouring out of her,” says Leonard. “There was this pep in her step.” When she was hooked up to the chemo drip next to them, she looked over and told them why: “It’s my last one.” If the moment was bittersweet for the Leonard family, it was also wonderful. The three of them talked about what the woman was looking forward to, when the effects of her chemo had subsided. “It was so simple,” says Leonard. “Being able to eat a slice of toast and taste it. Having marmalade again. Drinking a cup of tea. Not feeling sick. Her family were going to have a tea party to celebrate.”

When they were leaving, Leonard turned to her mother and said she knew what she wanted to base her new book on: celebrations and sharing moments, small and large. In the midst of familial anguish, she had found a motto she could grab on to: life is fleeting. Seize the day. “Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow,” she says. “But we have today.”

As Leonard tells this story, she is sitting at her desk in her upstairs office in her cafe and bakery, 2210 Patisserie, in Mullingar, with windows that look out on to the bronze statue of Joe Dolan in Market Square. A quick talker and fast thinker, she laughs easily and is a whirlwind of ideas. Before her is her new book: Good Together: Delicious Recipes for the Moments that Matter. A lavishly produced hardback, it’s full of practical recipes – from cheese scones to loaf cake – that are easy to follow and don’t make you feel a fool for not having some esoteric item in your kitchen.

Leonard has just relocated her business in Mullingar to a three-storey buil