A Port Moody woman has been crowned the creepiest baker.
And that’s not because of her face tattoos and piercings that include her tongue, cheeks and upper lip.
Hollie Fraser, who owns Punk Rock Pastries in Burnaby, is the champion of the Food Network’s Halloween Baking Championship.
The finale of the show’s ninth season aired on Monday, Oct. 30, 2023.
In her rise to the top from the initial pool of 12 bakers, Fraser — who’s originally from Australia and lives in Port Moody — had to survive weekly challenges to create demonic deserts using proscribed ingredients or specific instructions.
For Monday’s first round the last three competitors couldn’t use flour but had to incorporate black sesame seeds, black seaweed or black pepper.
Fraser’s winning concoction was comprised of a black peppercorn buttercream cookie set in a no-bake cheesecake coffin with a bloody cherry centre.
The panel of three judges lauded Fraser’s creation as “Gothic funeral realness.”
She then had five hours to bake and decorate a fun house while her two opponents created a two-headed monster and a hall of lost souls.
Again, Fraser impressed the judges, who called her work “funny, scary, it’s wonderful.”
Fraser said she’ll use the $25,000 first prize to bring her father from Australia so they can bake together.
It’s not the first time Fraser’s macabre munchies have been in the spotlight since she opened her bakery on Hastings Street in 2019.
That same year, she won another Food Network show, Big Bake Halloween, and last year she took some heat from the City of Burnaby after a complaint about her “genitalia cookies.”
Fraser was asked to post a disclaimer on the door of her bakery cautioning anyone under the age of 16 not to enter.
“Sorry if we shocked anyone,” she posted on her Punk Rock Pastries’ Instagram account.
“But that’s the aim of the game.”
— with files from the Burnaby Now
