April Julian has always been interested in making, whether it was woodworking, painting or baking. She began cake decorating in 2007, after watching an episode of the Martha Stewart Show featuring famous Food Network chef, Ron Ben Israel. Together the pair was making a sugar orchid cake. Julian was so intrigued that she had to know how to make it.
“I wrote to [Ron] to ask where I could learn this craft and he was kind enough to write back. He said he loved Toronto and directed me to some resources and classes where I could learn,” Julian recalls. The rest is history. But, never did April think she’d be whipping up these ornate, life-like creations on the big screen.
Despite her innate creative ability and years of honing her craft and entering cake decorating competitions, Julian never thought she’d one day manage to get a spot on a top-rated Netflix show. In fact, how she managed to secure her 15 minutes of fame on Is It Cake is still shrouded in mystery, after she received a random DM on Instagram asking if she wanted to come to Los Angeles for a taping.
“At the time, I had not really been active on social media and had a very small following, so of course I thought this was a total scam!” Julian says with a laugh. The casting agency’s sleuthing paid off, though, as Julian churns out mind boggling creations week after week.
As much as possible, Julian says, she tries to create cake that hasn’t already been done, finding objects that will elicit the biggest reaction. Her most viral TikTok right now shows April cutting into a charred chicken wing, then lifting up the “raw meat” and taking a bite. Reactions on the video range from pure disgust to sheer delight. The creativity doesn’t stop there. Her creations range from things like high heeled shoes to bowls of ramen and everything in between and, as the show’s name aptly suggests, the finished products really do have you wondering to yourself, “is it cake?”
Her creative process involves looking for as many reference photos and videos as possible. If possible, live models are ideal, but hard to do if you’re creating something like a dog. Once she has the references, she bakes the cakes, fills them with buttercream, carves them down to the basic shape and then covers the cake in modelling chocolate that she can then sculpt and paint to look like the real deal. It’s pure art and entirely edible. Bringing her work to the big screen has been surreal, she says.
“It’s been the most fun and bizarre thing that’s ever happened to me,” Julian says of her newfound cake creating fame. That said, she hasn’t given her future in television baking much thought.
“Right now, I’m still working full-time as an educator for the Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust,” she says. “To be honest, I haven’t really had the time to digest what this kind of exposure could mean for my life but I’m excited to see what else the universe has in store.”
You can see more of April Julian’s creations on Is It Cake, streaming now on Netflix worldwide and on her TikTok and Instagram accounts, @apriljuliancakes.
