INTERVIEW with Pearly Sprinkles || Professional Cake Decorator and Mental Health Advocate
Photo by Life Portraits Fitness
SD: Hi Pearly. Can you please introduce yourself to my readers who don’t know you yet?
PS: Hi! I’m Pearly Tasker and I’m 30 years old. I’m a professional cake decorator and you may have seen me on Zumbo’s Just Desserts S2. I like to go by my moniker Pearly Sprinkles – She’s my badass alter-ego who bakes and kicks anxiety’s butt. I’m also an advocate for raising awareness on mental health because I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD).
SD: Where does your passion for cooking come from?
PS: My mum was never one for baking when I was a kid, so my sisters and I taught ourselves. The first thing I can remember making were rock cakes (Well before Hagrid made them popular!) but it wasn’t until I was much older that I got into cake decorating. I have always been artistic, so to me it’s like combining sculpture with the fact that I have a major sweet tooth.
SD: What is your baking background?
PS: I was a home baker for many years – it was my side gig/ outlet for self-expression while I was a flight attendant for a well-known Aussie airline. I would think about cakes all day long while I was at work, longing to make the cake-life my reality! It wasn’t until I was cast on Zumbo’s S2 that I realised I could leave my flying job to pursue baking full time. I walked myself into Cakes and Sh!t, a funky little Brisbane cake shop famous for its novelty cakes and curse cookies, and I asked the owner Sam for a job – and she said yes! I’ve been professionally baking ever since, and Sam and I even pulled off a fantastic feat by putting on a laneway festival dedicated to cake in 2019.
SD: Do you have any advice for baking enthusiasts (beginners/ intermediate)?
Photo by Life Portraits Fitness
PS: Don’t beat yourself up for not creating the perfect cake or dish on the first time you try a new technique. Speaking from experience- I’m a sucker for seeing something on Instagram or Pinterest and then trying it and feeling disappointed that it doesn’t look the same. But you know what? The old adage that ‘practice makes perfect’ is true! So if you keep practicing, you’re going to end up nailing that new technique.
SD: What’s the strangest or funniest edible image cake you’ve ever been asked to make?
PS: I’ve made some pretty out-there cakes! But one of my favourites is the dick-donut cake – I’ve actually recreated it 3 times! It’s now a Cakes and Sh!t classic. It’s a cake carved into the shape of a donut, with a pink, white chocolate ganache dripping down the sides, a massive helping of sprinkles and a big, pink cake-pop penis poking out the top! Certainly blasts those old school donuts with Freddo Frogs poking out of them out of the water.
SD: What is your most memorable achievement to date?
PS: That is 100 percent being cast on Zumbo’s Just Desserts Season 2! I’ve had some pretty wonderful achievements but getting on the show was the catalyst that changed my life for the better! I literally had the time of my life – being on set was like my drama queen and cake artist’s dreams come true! Even when we had to wait for camera set up or spend 12 hours plus in the studio: I loved every moment of it. I would take a mental picture everyday and just soak it in because I knew it would be a fleeting experience that I will treasure forever. I’d kill to get on another show!
SD: Where do you get your recipe inspiration from?
PS:A few recipes I’ve created been inspired by memories from my childhood. I took the concept of one of my favourite children’s books to create an ice-cream based dessert for a live demonstration with Lollipop Cake Supplies during the Covid19 lockdown.
Photo by Cam Attree
SD: Share your worst baking nightmare. Any epic recipe failures?
PS: Heat. Is. Not. My. Friend. Anytime I’ve had a baking disaster it’s generally due to heat or moisture in the air (welcome to baking in Queensland!). My most obvious one would be on Zumbo’s in the tower episode. The set got so hot because everyone was using their ovens, and so my buttercream began melting off my unicorn tower. On TV. The great thing about most of my baking nightmares is that no one sees them! They only see the amazing end result, but not the sleepless night or re-covering of fondant or bin full of swiss meringue buttercream that never set.
SD: What’s the most adventurous dish you’ve ever eaten?
PS: I’m going to give you the bougy-est possible answer – when I travelled to Paris with my husband we went to the Louvre (of course darling) and then we headed to a little brasserie around the corner and had escargot and foie gras. It was so, so delicious, but I did feel morally conflicted about the foie gras.
SD: What’s an important mental health message you would like to share?
PS: As a practicing advocate for Generalised Anxiety and BDD, I can only give advice based on my lived-in experience and research. And as someone who has lived with negative thoughts patterns for a long time, I’ve become very good at being ‘mean’ to myself. So I’m trying to learn to be more compassionate to myself. Imagining if I said the same thing to someone else as I would say to myself. I’d possibly get kicked in the face!
Try it next time you catch your mind being nasty to yourself. Imagine telling your best friend that ‘she’s fat’ or ‘she’s never going to get her business off the ground’. Damn. I bet you wouldn’t. It kind of takes the credibility out of that nasty thought doesn’t it?
Follow Pearly on her:
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/pearly.justdessertsau/
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cakes.and.shit/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pearly.justdessertsau/