Dabbled Interview – Hello Naomi

You’ve probably seen Naomi Henderson (aka Hello Naomi) and her cupcakes around the web. Fun, creative, and a little geeky too. I can’t link to them all in this post, so check these out. I asked her for an interview to learn a little more about her and those fun and fab cupcakes, and here she is!

Your cake designs are wonderful — so creative and excellently crafted! How did you get started? How long have you been doing it?

:D thanks!!! I have always loved baking and making cupcakes but I got into decorating them early last year when I did a beginners cake decorating course. That taught me how to work with fondant and a few basic things that allowed me to figure out how to make what the things I want to.

Without giving away trade secrets, can you tell us anything about your ingredients or techniques?

Umm well I guess this is a big secret to give away but it is important, I use an Australian brand of rolled fondant “orchard” it is really good for two reasons, it has a really soft texture/ look and also it tastes really good. A lot of people tell me that they don’t like the taste of fondant and so I guess you should try a few brands to find one that tastes nice and is good to work with.

Is this what you do with your life, or do you have a “day job” as well?

No its not, I would really love to have a shop and I am working on starting a business but sometimes when I spend sooo long making my stuff I wonder if I will ever be able to make money from it! So at the moment my “day job” is that I’m a computer engineering PhD student. I get paid to program robots to play soccer and its pretty fun :D. [ed- gets paid to program soccer robots? how cool is that!]

Do you have other creative outlets?

Umm no I haven’t got time! I would love to do a million creative things but at the moment cupcakes are my only release of creativity.

You’ve done some really fun stuff, like the Pac Man designed cupcakes. Where does your inspiration come from? Do you classify yourself as a geek?

Haha umm no I don’t class myself as a geek… maybe more of a nerd..?! But being a computer engineer I do have alot of geeky and nerdy guy friends so after a while of making them pink cupcakes with rainbows and flowers I thought I should make them something a bit more suited so that’s when I thought of video game themed, robots, lego etc.

What are your favorite things to surf to on the web?

Cupcakes of course! When ever I can I’m looking up cakes, cupcakes, cake decorating supplies etc.

How much would it cost if I wanted you to ship a way cool birthday cake from Australia!?!!?

Umm that’s a good question…A lot of people ask me but I’m not in business yet so I haven’t really looked into it, a few cake shops in Australia do it so it cant be too expensive… I think?!

Thanks for the great info! Love your work…

Previous Dabbled interviews, including Cory Godbey, Shannon Riffe, Diana Evans, & Diane Gilleland