Fake Food Workshop

In a quiet corner of Kirkcudbright, we came across Kerry Boyes, and boy oh boy, she makes a belter breakfast. Not something we usually review on TFN, but it has to be said, this one is worth every bit of praise, as are her pies, puddings, pecan tarts and roast poussin. Don't visit on an empty stomach though. You'll leave let down, as everything Boyes bakes is FAKE!

This is the inviting and unique Fake Food Workshop.

Kirkcudbright is an artist's haven on the River Dee in South West Scotland.

Visiting this area, you can't help but feel inspired by the creative swell in these streets. Known as 'The Artist's Town', creatives came because of the light, and the sea and the pretty pastel houses dotted around the harbour. Boyes came to bake!

This was a curious find and one we stumbled across by chance. With an A-level-age child, whose theme in art is baking, we're always looking for things that jump off the plate and onto the page! Whilst exploring a local gallery as part of Kirkcudbright's Spring Fling, a series of open studio workshops, the artist ushered us around the river to make a chance meeting with lovely Kerry.

Outside, the shop blends seamlessly into any respectable Victorian high street. The whimsical twists of ladies in jelly mould hats, the gold leaf, and vintage branding graphics all make it seem like a cakery bakery beyond belief!

The term 'incredible edibles' is somewhat of an understatement from the outside!

Upon entering, the little kick and tinkle of the manual brass doorbell alerts the attentive ear that customers are present, but there's no rush or hurry. You're left at your leisure to wander and savour the flavour of everything on show.

Row upon row of magnificently made sweets, treats, cakes and puddings. Porridge, consommé, cheese boards and heart-shaped hot water pastry pies. It's all there for your indulgence, but the flour and eggs have bypassed the bowl; each piece is crafted from homemade silicone moulds then cast in jesmonite, or plaster, and licked into shape with acrylic colour.

She proudly proclaims:

Including the tantalisingly tasty display in the hot cupboard, looking like they're fresh from Gosforth-based Freggs! Anyone for a steak bake...all fake?

In her light lilting Allandale accent, yes, Boyes belongs from Northumberland, so we can genuinely celebrate her as a canny Northumbrian export, like Pan Haggerty or Singing Hinnies- she outlined the key concept behind her fake food.

Boyes cracked out the moulds and got into her best Mrs Beeton mode.

At first, it was just a handful of berries she tried to replicate on the kitchen table with her kids... and that turned out to be the fruit of life! She dabbled next with a small birthday cake as a gift for her mam. It came out canny! Maybe, hard to poke the candles in?

As her skills grew, so did the menu...an odd scone and sandwich. Boyes toyed with more and more, making high tea, placing her makes on delicate plates.

I asked her what sowed the seed for fake food. She explained that she'd always been a maker, a mender. She'd held previous jobs as a stone carver at Vindolanda, dealing with replica Roman artefacts. She's worked as a sculptor, a curator of heritage collections in museums, and as a taxidermist, where she studied the shape, build and form of how to bring a carcass back together.

She said this really helped when making replica food, like a full hog roast, a goose, or a turkey for Christmas.

Her curiosity in Beeton's lithographs led her to exhibit her work at the Union Gallery in Edinburgh. She whipped up another batch of meringues, made more macarons, and had a bash at selling them on eBay, where Boyes' baking took the world by storm. She said -

It seems that the Fake Bake phenomenon was ready to cake the world by storm!

One of Kerry's attributes is her mild manner and modesty. She's not all show like her two-tiered jellies or splashy sundaes; she's quiet and reflective, almost a little shocked still that her high tea has hit such high praise.

She's been sucked into the world of celebrity, inadvertently, and licked into vanillary shape!

In 2023, her work appeared in the highest-grossing movie of the year, The Barbie Movie. Her unmeltable ice creams, which adorn the shelves in her shop, are a testament to her success. They depict the famous “Hold my ice cream” moment in the film where Ken takes on his opponent in some heated rivalry. Working in such hot conditions, real ice cream would of course be entirely impractical, so from Kirkcudbright to California, Warner Bros flew in more than 99!

She has other high-profile customers and sends pieces to the National Trust, Selfridges, Disney, The Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and even to the owner of an Italian super yacht, who fancied a ceiling of pastel coloured cakes, biscuits, doughnuts and macarons. What a thing...to open your eyes and awake to cake!

She recreates banquets for stately homes and spends months studying the minutiae of how a dish might look, from colour and texture to the cultural legacy of food.

It's a reflection on social history: how the other half ate; the highs and lows of culinary cuisine. The detail in the lavish layer of chocolate spread or the brush of the butter knife is impeccable.

Closer to home, Lord and Lady Barnard of Raby Castle are regular customers at Christmas when The Fake Food Workshop is often called up to make tea for Santa and his elves.

Boyes warmth and wonder at the whole thing is infectious -

She is a perfect home-grown treasure, creative in her craft beyond compare. Our daughter's eyes, out on stalks at the mastery of it all, left with a slice of chocolate cake and a custard cream. Like the leaving of any good Northumbrian aunt; you don't go home on an empty stomach, only these are still intact and enticing several months on, sitting on her bedroom shelf.

I asked Kerry if she had any unmet ambitions; her response - “I want to create a fake jelly that actually wobbles.”