Tori Panoutsopoulos is baking her dreams into reality. Photos: The Fondant Canvas.
Tori Panoutsopoulos’ culinary success was steady, right up until her make-or-break moment in December 2024.
What started as a request for Bluey-themed cookies for her son’s birthday party had, for about a year, been quietly snowballing into a real side hustle, when The Fondant Canvas was presented with an opportunity.
“I was asked if I could stage a stall at the Figtree Carols, which is a pretty major event,” she said. “The catch was, I had fewer than 24 hours to prepare.”
Until then, she had been a government employee by day and home baker by night. But as the saying (sort of) goes: bake it ’til you make it.
Tori mobilised, whipping up 200 cookies that very day and waking up at 2 am the next, to ensure they were baked as fresh as humanly possible.
With their fun designs, mind-boggling attention to detail and sweet, buttery taste, the cookies were a hit, and business boomed.
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Tori went from making thousands to tens of thousands of cookies within a year.
“I can comfortably say I made well over 20,000 cookies in the 12 months after that Christmas market,” she said. “There was one week this year in which I made over 2000 cookies. That’s not something I would recommend to any solo baker.”
The Fondant Canvas has a burgeoning reputation for its custom, hand-crafted cookies in distinctive, creative designs, made with high-quality ingredients.
Based in Dapto, the cookies can be found at two “collectives” in the Illawarra — The Society in Stockland Shellharbour and Thirroul + Co. They’re also available at markets, hand-delivered locally and shipped Australia-wide.
Armed with specialised printers for creating custom cookie cutters and edible images, Tori can recreate just about any picture or imprint in edible form, with precision. Skilled with a paintbrush, she can also hand-paint them in edible ink.
The results are as unique as the customers who order them, whether to celebrate an occasion, to use as a delicious marketing tool for a small business or as a personalised gift.
“Polaroid photos are a popular choice on occasions like Father’s Day,” Tori says.
But as quickly as the business has grown, it’s only the beginning.
Tori has already expanded the offering to New York-style stuffed cookies, with delicious fillings such as Nutella, Dubai chocolate and Biscoff, which she “can’t keep on the shelves”.
“This Christmas past was absolutely nuts, keeping up with demand for both styles of cookie,” she says.
This year will see the expansion of these two core product lines, and possibly the introduction of exciting new ones. Eventually, the dream is to see The Fondant Canvas available in stores in cities around the country.
“I love working with businesses like The Society and Thirroul + Co that support small makers. It would be wonderful to have The Fondant Canvas products in more businesses with the same sort of model — first focusing on Sydney and then, Australia-wide,” Tori says.
For more information, visit The Fondant Canvas.
