SCHOOL pals often discuss what they’re going to be when they grow up, and they quite often fantasise together about the businesses they’re going to run.

What happens less often however, is these plans coming to fruition. For two Dumfriesshire school friends though, they have done just that – and with great success!

Louise Henderson and Seonaid Paterson have been friends since childhood, growing up together in the small village of Lochfoot.

As kids, they would frequently talk about their ‘perfect café’ ideas and, Louise admits rather bizarrely, dress up as the famous Two Fat Ladies to host pretend cookery shows for friends and family.

They never stopped talking about their plans though, and after both graduating from university and struggling to find full time employment, and both returning home to Dumfries and Galloway, they decided to make their pretend café a reality and began planning what would eventually open as NonaLou’sTearoom.

From a site in the Dumfries town centre, the pair launched their business and for seven years ran one of the ‘places to be’ when it came to good lunches and somewhere to meet friends for a cuppa and a natter.

“The tearoom was our pride and joy for seven years,” explained Louise, who comes from a farming family and can often be found still helping her dad and brother at home.

“To our delight, the business took off, and we were recognised with The Princes Trust Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, we were runners up in the Visit Scotland Thistle awards and our passion for locally sourced ingredients led to membership of the Taste our Best scheme.”

One thing that NonaLou’s became really synonymous with, however, was good cakes.

The team started running what they called Fat Friday, a sugar coma inducing cake every Friday, with a different twist and locals flocked to the café each week to get their slice.

The power of social media and word of mouth took hold, and people started requesting Fat Friday cakes to order, for birthdays and other celebrations, and very soon this concept became a must have at weddings, with brides and grooms choosing to have Fat Friday cakes laid out or stacked high, instead of the traditional fondant cake.

Cakes to order started to become an integral part of Louise and Seonaid’s business and in 2018, Fat Bottom Girls Cakes was born – a stand alone company to deal with all things cake!

Louise explained that things really started to take off, especially with wedding cakes, and that at that point something had to give. That something was NonaLou’s Tearoom. She said: “The wedding cake offering developed to include multiple styles, flavours and tiers, and in March 2019, we closed NonaLou’s to allow the cake business to receive our full attention.

The original Fat Friday cakes haven’t been lost though. The pair are selling them at a local Farmshop and café, Kilnford, on the edge of Dumfries next to the new hospital.

“The flavour choices each week are completely random,” Louise told us, “sometimes we try and link them in with any orders we have that week and already making, but the most popular has always been the Galaxy Caramel cake.”

Wedding cakes are the main part of the girls work now though, and especially at this time of year, rarely a week goes past where they are not creating at least one cake-y creation to deliver to a happy couple to be enjoyed on their big day.

They create all sorts of flavours of cakes in all sorts of styles and are happy to deliver them to your venue and set them up as you want them, adding cake toppers or flowers to suit your big day or theme.

Louise and Seonaid have great social media platforms where they post mouth watering photos of their creations, but they count themselves lucky that word of mouth seems to work great for them.

Louise said: “We do attend wedding fayres, normally just the local ones around D&G at the beginning of the year, however, word of mouth seems to be how most people hear about us. We’re really lucky.

“We also do things like cupcakes and traybakes, and a new popular request we get is for a cake table or a dessert table, so a mixture of a few different flavours of cakes or traybakes/brownies etc, so we really do try and cater to whatever people want. I don’t think there have been any requests that we’ve had to turn down yet – we like a challenge!”

They also admit that being based in Dumfries and Galloway is a huge benefit, with numerous wedding venues meaning that couples love the area to host their big day.

“We love baking new cakes for the couple getting married in them!”

The best place to contact Louise and Seonaid would be through their Facebook – Fat Bottomed Girls Cakes or their email – enquiry@fatbottomgirlscakes.co.uk