Andrew Fuller, dessert artiste and bon vivant. (Photo: Morrison Media Group)
By Hailey Evans
Halloween has its dedicated fans — myself among them — but nobody commits to the bit quite like Andrew Fuller. The TV star and local baker is easy to spot with his electric green hair, rainbow beard and penchant for dressing like a Tim Burton character 365 days of the year.
As a baker of cakes and lover of all things strange, Fuller’s hyper-realistic, made-to-order cakes have earned him a loyal following here in Des Moines. After winning the inaugural season of Netflix’s hit baking competition show “Is it Cake?” in 2022 and returning for an all-star holiday spinoff in 2024, his star rose to the national level.
More recently, the Food Network tapped Fuller to appear on two reality baking programs: as a judge for the competitive “Halloween Wars,” which premiered this month, and as an expert cake artist on the game show-style “Sweet Deceit,” hosted by Josh Peck.
Since Fuller is a certified Halloween expert at this point, I chatted with him about the upcoming holiday and a few ways to crank up the spooky factor at your next costume party. The following summary has been lightly edited for clarity and space.
Are you dressing up this year?
Well I like to say it’s like Halloween 365 days of the year for me. But something kind of iconic, like a bucket list thing I didn’t know was a bucket list thing, is that now people are telling me they are dressing up as me for Halloween, which is crazy. It’s to the point that sometimes people don’t recognize me and they think I’m dressing up as myself. They’ll tell me “You look just like that cake guy!”
Sadly, my husband and I probably won’t be doing costumes this year because we’ll be in the U.K. for Cake International (a global sugarcraft convention held annually in Birmingham, England). I’m an ambassador for the British fondant company Renshaw, so I’ll be there representing their products.
What are some simple hacks to a great Halloween party?
To me, a successful Halloween party starts with a great atmosphere. If you can create the right mood and ambiance, you’re set. Start by curating a retro Halloween playlist. Old jazz songs, spooky vintage Disney — even better if you can get your hands on an old phonograph and play some real records. That’s the kind of vibe I like. You can create a spooky vibe without too many props if you lean into lots of candles and low light. There’s this spray adhesive you can get at hardware stores that resembles realistic cobwebs if you blow it with a fan as you spray. And you can put anything under glass domes and it’ll look like a creepy apothecary specimen.
No matter what kind of party you throw, it’s inevitable people end up congregating in the kitchen, so give that space some atmosphere. If you fill the sink with warm water and dump in some dry ice it’ll create this eerie, low-lying fog for the whole evening. Have some themed drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
What’s it like behind the scenes on the Food Network?
“Halloween Wars” is kind of like the anchor of all these cake shows on the Food Network. And it’s the show that really got me interested in doing cakes on TV in this way. So when they called and asked if I wanted to be a judge, I was like, “Absolutely!” The host this season is Jonathan Bennett, the love interest from “Mean Girls,” and the other judge is Shinmin Li, who’s been with the series since the beginning. So it was nerve-wracking coming into this group as the new guy, but they welcomed me with open arms. I didn’t really know what to expect, but the whole crew has really become one big family, and I’m grateful for that warm welcome.
“Sweet Deceit” is a bit different in that I’m there as a cake expert and a kind of co-host, so I’m not judging anything. But as someone who has been on the other side of competition shows like this as a contestant, I feel like I bring a different perspective, and I kind of know what competitors are going through.
Being on the other side is not like the stress of being a contestant, but I think being a co-host and a judge come with their own unique stressful moments, too. As a judge, I want to give people honest and fair critique, but I also know how hard it is to receive that as you’re being filmed, and I don’t want to discourage them. But it’s been so much fun to see things from this side — when you’re competing, you’re kind of in your own bubble — and being able to analyze other people’s techniques and witness them create things. When the challenges are announced, I’m sometimes in my head thinking of all the things I would want to do, and then I get to see people make things I would have never considered. It’s fun to see how other people’s brains work.
Can people still order cakes from you or visit your baking studio in Des Moines?
One of the most paradoxical things about this journey is that I got here because of my love of making cakes, and the more projects I take on, the less it seems I get to actually touch cake. I opened my baking studio, Sugar Freak Show, after winning “Is It Cake?” not knowing the trajectory my career would take. I never imagined it as a full-on bakery; I’ve always thought of it more like an artist’s studio, and now that I’m traveling so much and doing these projects, I’m just not there as often as I’d like. But that’s still where I do my content creation and where I work on commissioned cakes. I liken myself to a master tattoo artist, in terms of where I am with my career — I’m a little more choosy with the commissions I take on due to my time constraints, but I’m always so excited to work on them. That’s the part I truly love.
Sometime in the future, when I’m able to be there more, I’d like to open the studio up to the public and offer live cake-sculpting viewing. Like, welcome people in, theater-style, and show them how I make my art.
If you could make a cake for anyone, who would be your “dream client”?
Well, I used to have an answer for this but then it happened! I’ve always said Tim Burton has been a major influence over so much of my aesthetic, my creativity and even, like, my feelings toward death. So I would have said him, but then I actually got to make him a cake of The Thing to celebrate the release of the “Wednesday” Netflix series, and it was like a dream come true. So, I think the next iconic choice would have to be Elvira, since she’s the queen of Halloween.
Connect with Fuller and see more of his cake art on his Instagram @sugarfreakshow.
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