Here is my way of having fixture loaded within my unit-test. the data from the fixture will then be loaded in your DB instance and also available on the object through self.data

__init__.py

from flask import Flask, render_template
from flask.ext.sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy
from flask.ext.login import LoginManager

# Database
db = SQLAlchemy()

def create_app(config="config"):
  # Init app and load config
  app = Flask(__name__)
  app.config.from_object(config)

  # Error Handler
  @app.errorhandler(404)
  def not_found(error):
      return render_template("404.html"), 404

  # Importing blueprint
  from app.identities.views import mod as identitiesModule
  from app.comments.views import mod as commentsModule

  # Registering blueprint
  app.register_blueprint(identitiesModule)
  app.register_blueprint(commentsModule)

  # Initialize SQLAlchemy
  db.init_app(app)
  return app

config_test.py

# import the main config and overwrite some for unittest purpose 
from config import *

TESTING = True # sometimes it helps to know we are in tests mode
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = "sqlite://" # Use SQL memory DB
CSRF_ENABLED = False # We don't want CSRF for testing

fixture.py

from fixture import DataSet
from werkzeug import generate_password_hash

from ..models import User, Identity
from ..constants import ADMIN, ACTIVE, USER, NEW, INACTIVE


class IdentityData(DataSet):
  class Admin:
    role = ADMIN
    status_id = ACTIVE
    email = "[email protected]"
    password = generate_password_hash("password")

  class NewUser:
    role = USER
    status_id = NEW
    email = "[email protected]"
    password = generate_password_hash("password")

  class ActiveUser:
    role = USER
    status_id = ACTIVE
    email = "[email protected]"
    password = generate_password_hash("password")

  class OtherActiveUser:
    role = USER
    status_id = ACTIVE
    email = "[email protected]"
    password = generate_password_hash("password")

  class InactiveUser:
    role = USER
    status_id = INACTIVE
    email = "[email protected]"
    password = generate_password_hash("password")


class UserData(DataSet):
  class Robert:
    name = "Robert"
    identity = IdentityData.InactiveUser

  class Roger:
    name = "Roger"
    identity = IdentityData.NewUser

  class Steve:
    name = "Steve"
    identity = IdentityData.ActiveUser

  class Chris:
    name = "Chris"
    identity = IdentityData.OtherActiveUser

  class Anthony:
    name = "Anthony"
    identity = IdentityData.Admin

  class Mike:
    name = "Mike"
    identity = IdentityData.Admin


all_data = [IdentityData, UserData]

env = {
  "UserData": User,
  "IdentityData": Identity,
}

test_auth.py

from flask import url_for

from app.lib.testing import TestCase
from app.identities.models import Identity

# importing some other fixture form another fixture directory
from app.comments.tests import fixtures as comments_fixtures
from .fixtures import all_data, env

# merging the data (can be as many as you want)
env.update(comments_fixtures.env)
all_data += comments_fixtures.all_data

class TestAuth(TestCase):
  datasets = all_data
  env = env

  reg_data = {
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "name": "john",
    "password": "password",
    "confirm": "password",
  }

  def test_registerExistingEmail(self):
    reg_data = self.reg_data.copy()
    reg_data["email"] = self.data.IdentityData.InactiveUser.email
    response = self.client.post(url_for("identities.register"), data=reg_data)
    self.assertStatus(response, 200)
    assert "email already exists" in response.data

  def test_emailRegister(self):
    response = self.client.post(url_for("identities.register"),
                                data=self.reg_data)
    self.assertStatus(response, 302)
    assert Identity.query.filter_by(email=self.reg_data["email"]).first()

  def test_inactiveLogin(self):
    response = self.client.get(url_for("identities.login"))
    self.assertStatus(response, 200)
    login_data = {
      "email": self.data.IdentityData.InactiveUser.email,
      "password": "password",
    }
    response = self.client.post(url_for("identities.login"), data=login_data)
    self.assertStatus(response, 200);
    assert "Wrong email or password" in response.data

  def test_login(self):
    response = self.client.get(url_for("identities.login"))
    self.assertStatus(response, 200)
    login_data = {
      "email": self.data.IdentityData.ActiveUser.email,
      "password": "password",
    }
    response = self.client.post(url_for("identities.login"), data=login_data)
    self.assertStatus(response, 302);
    self.assertRedirects(response, url_for("identities.home"))
    response = self.client.get(url_for("identities.home"))
    self.assertStatus(response, 200);

testing.py

from urlparse import urlparse

from flask.ext.testing import TestCase as _TestCase
from fixture import SQLAlchemyFixture
from app import db, create_app

class TestCase(_TestCase):
  """
  Handle fixture loading on top of flask test case
  """
  datasets = []
  data = None
  fixture = None
  env = None

  def tear_down(self):
    pass

  def set_up(self):
    pass

  def create_app(self):
    return create_app(config='config_test')

  def create_fixture(self):
    return SQLAlchemyFixture(session=self.session, env=self.env)

  def setUp(self):
    self.session = db.create_scoped_session({'autocommit':True})
    if self.datasets:
      self.fixture = self.create_fixture()
      db.create_all()
      self.data = self.fixture.data(*self.datasets)
      self.data.setup()
    self.set_up()

  def tearDown(self):
    if self.datasets:
      self.data.teardown()
    db.session.remove()
    db.drop_all()
    self.tear_down()

  # to simplify unittest some helper methods...
  def login(self, email=None, password='password', ID=None):
    """
    login user with an Identity instance or email address.
    """
    if ID:
      email = ID.email
    return self.client.post('/identities/login/', data={
          'email': email, 'password': password})

  def assertPath(self, response, path):
    """
    ignore the query(?foo=bar) part of the response
    """
    self.assertTrue(urlparse(response.location).path, path)

  def assertExist(self, model, **kwargs):
    """
    Assert existence of an object in the db
    usage: assertExist(Identity, email="[email protected]", status=1)
    """
    self.assertIsNotNone(model.query.filter_by(**kwargs).first())

  def assertNotExist(self, model, **kwargs):
    """
    Check none existence of an object in the db
    usage: assertNotExist(Identity, email="[email protected]")
    """
    self.assertIsNone(model.query.filter_by(**kwargs).first())

directory structure:

/config.py # main config
/config_test.py # config loaded when unittest on
/manage.py # using flask script
/app/__init__.py (contains create_app())
/app/identities/(__init__.py|views.py|forms.py|models.py...)
/app/identities/tests/fixtures.py
/app/identities/tests/test_auth.py

I use discover to run all my test at once. when I want to run just one test:

To run all the tests in TestAuth

python -m unittest app.identities.tests.test_auth.TestAuth

To run just test_registerExistingEmail test in TestAuth

python -m unittest app.identities.tests.test_auth.TestAuth.test_registerExistingEmail