Nothing brightens up a space like a bouquet of lush, stop-you-in-your-tracks-beautiful flowers. The colors, the shapes, the artistic arrangement—their beauty is enhanced because it is short-lived, and you know you need to enjoy them while you can. But what if you could actually EAT them?
I'm not talking about a single edible blossom floating in your cocktail (though there's certainly nothing wrong with that!). I mean a voluminous, Dutch Master still life–worthy work of art, made entirely of sugar. That's what Julie Simon Cakes does, and the results are both delicious and dazzling. Her website isn't kidding when it says "Julie Simon creates dreams in confectionary."
The artist has a fascinating backstory: Her sugary skills are completely self-taught, she graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, and she is the niece of music superstar Carly Simon. (Julie's mother, Lucy Simon, has quite a musical pedigree herself and performed with Carly back in the 1960s as folk duo The Simon Sisters.) Simon's "bespoke cakes & confectionary," as you might imagine, do not come cheap: Prices start at $25 per serving and can go up to $100 per serving or more. And being based in Los Angeles, she has the kind of celebrity client list you might imagine as well: According to Atlas Obscura, she created the cake for Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott's daughter Stormi's first birthday party, which was crowned with a sugar carousel whose gilded horses actually moved up and down. Whoa!
Simon's cake portfolio is a wonder to behold (the jaw-dropping creation pictured at top is appropriately called Moroccan Enchantment)—as is her Instagram feed. She sometimes even teaches workshops to help wannabe cake artists hone their skills. The only problem is, even if I were somehow able to create such a masterpiece, I don't know if I could bring myself to cut into it!
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