A former Coronation Street actress is embroiled in an “utterly bizarre” social media row with a local bakery over her 40th birthday plans, in what has been labelled “cake gate”.

An events agency organising a celebration for Catherine Tyldesley contacted Three Little Birds Bakery in Bradford, West Yorkshire, asking it to make a 40th birthday cake, a second large cake and 100 cupcakes for an unnamed “well-known celebrity” in Manchester on Sept 1.

But the agency offered no payment, instead saying that “payment would be made in the form of promotion on their (the celebrity’s) socials with over 700K followers, as well as promoted in OK Magazine”.

The celebrity was later unmasked as Tyldesley, who is best known for playing Eva Price in the ITV soap, and is a former Strictly Come Dancing contestant.

The bakery went public with the row by posting a screenshot of the email on its Facebook account last week.

In a post liked by 6,000 people, it said: “This poor celebrity apparently can’t afford to pay people for their products and services. Spare a thought! What happened to women supporting women... #exposuredoesntpaythebills #supportsmallbusinessowners #supportwomenentrepreneurs.”