Kelly McWilliam is a self taught cake maker from north east of Scotland in a village called Oldmeldrum.


- How did you start your passion for cake making ?

I accidentally stumbled into the cake world when my husband asked me to make a cake for my mother in law and then friends asked and I started to do cakes for family birthdays and the rest is history as they say.
I entered a cake competition called cake international which is a huge cake show/competition a few years ago and caught the bug bad !
I am truly in my happy place when I am making things!


- What about the Goonies ?

The Goonies was and still is my absolute favourite movie of all time, I used to watch it with my brother and sister and now I watch it with my children ! It’s a truly magical movie !
Be different, be a kid for as long as possible, have crazy adventures and the value of true friendship !
I’d been desperate to make Chunk and Sloth for some time as their part in the movie was so funny and heartwarming !
Two unlikely people finding true friendship. I just LOVE the two of them !!!


- What is the technic behind those cakes ?

I usually start with a good image of who I’m going to make. Front, side, profiles. Then, I just start with a rough skull shape. I have a mold of a small skull, I press modelling paste into to give me a rough shape. Then I just build up the face and usually start with the mouth, the trickiest part.

I use a mix of modelling chocolate and modelling paste (my friend Etty makes the best modelling paste called Cake Dutchess).
I hand paint all my cakes as I’m not a fan of airbrushing and feel more in control when I’m hand painting.

The cakes were tricky as Scotland are having an unusually hot summer so I had to redo Chunk’s face altogether because he melted and had to salvage Sloth as he’d also melted a bit.


- How long does it take to make a sculpture ?

Chunk took the longest to do. In the end I did three faces before I was happy with him and I still see things I could improve but I’m always my own worst critic.

Sloth, on the other hand, was done in about 20 minutes ! Well, the structure of his face was. That’s not including painting and the body.

I can do the freaky, old, scary faces with my eyes closed but normal faces are always tricky !


- Where did you learn how to sculpt ?

I’m self taught so all trial and error, never done sculpting classes or anything and my maths and scale skills are no existent !
So I really go by eye a lot which doesn’t always work out but I get there.

My husband is an engineer so it frustrates him when I don’t measure/scale correctly ! But scale is so important, he’ll love I’ve said that as he nags me all the time about it !

I’m kinda rough round the edges but I like being that way.