The Cupcake King

One of the most virally successful online foodies, Nick Paterakis of The Scran Line, has taken Instagram by storm with his bold, beautiful and blissfully photogenic cupcake creations. Best of all, he's an Aussie. We caught up with the home-grown baking wizard and internet sensation.

So what's a scran line anyway?

When I was younger I joined the navy as a cook - I was only there for seven weeks before I realised it really wasn't for me. But the one good thing that came out of my time in the navy was the name for The Scran Line. "Scran" is the navy slang for food and when you queue up at the mess hall for meals, that would be the scran line.

Why did you launch your blog?

I started about eight years ago, and at that time YouTube was becoming a really important platform for food. I started following an amazing YouTube chef called Laura Vitale, and her videos were a big inspiration for The Scran Line. In those early days I was cooking lots of different things, not just cakes. It took about three years for me to figure out that's the direction I wanted to focus on.

Your cake designs are pretty wild. Where do you get your ideas from?

Everywhere! I have a background in graphic design, so I really wanted to use those skills as well as my cooking skills with The Scran Line. An idea for a cupcake design could come from a colour I really like, or a song I'm really into or an usual flavour combo. I never like to do the obvious thing, I always try to think outside of those predictable designs. There's usually one initial idea and then from there, I sketch out how I want it to look and work out how to take it from a concept to completion.

When did you first realise The Scran Line was getting big?

There's a YouTube celebrity chef called Elise Strachan who runs a brilliant channel called My Cupcake Addiction, which has literally millions of subscribers. We happened to meet in Miami, which was totally amazing. She then shared one of my videos on Facebook and the response was crazy. It got thousands of likes and views and that was a big moment for me. Since then things have blown-up on Instagram, with more than 220k followers now. But the biggest milestone was being contacted by Tastemade [the digital food channel]. Working for them has truly changed my life.

Check out the recipes for Nick's cupcakes at thescranline.com