You’ve Got to Look Twice at Punk Rock Pastries Creations
By Alexis Baran
A butcher, a baker, a spooky cake maker, Punk Rock Pastries’ Hollie Fraser is all of the above. While she may be butchering exclusively cakes and buttercream these days, you wouldn’t know it looking at her creations.
Hollie is the owner of Punk Rock Pastries and together with her small team, they’ve baked and sculpted their way not only into the mouths and stomachs of locals – but also into shows such as the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Mighty Ducks and Turner and Hooch.
Located just on the outskirts of the fabulous-for-foodies Burnaby Heights neighbourhood, the shop shelves are full of pastries and cookies that go from adorably colourful and bubbly, to convincingly horrific, to R-rated. Walk-by traffic often has mixed reviews. “[Punk Rock Pastries] is an adult-themed bakery,” says Hollie. “So when most people see our genital cookies they either laugh so hard or go bright red. We have even had a few people walk out because it’s too shocking.”
Since Halloween is Hollie’s all-time favourite time of the year to make themed goodies, you’ll often find creepy-crawly insect-themed treats and body parts that look so realistic you’ll hesitate before digging in. To really enjoy, a sense of humour is a must. “At the end of the day,” says Hollie, “if we can make people smile we are doing the right thing.”
For anyone who thinks these are all for the visual novelty, think again; these treats are as delicious as they are eye-catching. Hollie grew up, as she says, with “jam and flour” flowing through her veins. “I totally started with a love of baking. My dad was a baker… I actually loved art growing up and believed I was either going to be an artist or chef and decided, why not do both?”
It may be all about severed hearts, glossy insects, and horror movies in October, but once the sugary blood is wiped away, Hollie’s second favourite time of year to make sculptural cakes for is the holiday season. “People come to us for your non-traditional Christmas dessert,” says Hollie, “we make a lot of Nightmare Before Christmas cakes and Krampus cakes.”
Punk Rock Pastries generally requires a two-month notice to get custom sculptural cakes in the works, so time to start thinking of your sweet Krampus needs now.
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