Candy Queen Jackie Sorkin Reveals The One Candy She Refuses To Work With - Exclusive
Pick a candy, any candy. Chances are, you'll find it in "Candy Queen" Jackie Sorkin's Los Angeles workshop. "I like to say, I have all the candy in the world," Sorkin told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "Which is probably not totally accurate. But you know, we have like thousands of types of candy, hundreds at any time." Gummy candies are a favorite of Sorkin's. More precisely, they're a guilty pleasure. Simply put, Sorkin's relationship with candy is truly unlike anyone else's. "I love all candy," she admitted to Mashed, adding that she feels bad when she doesn't choose certain types for a design. "I feel like I'm leaving people out. It's like the candy has feelings for me ... It makes me sad."
If you've watched TLC's show "Candy Queen," or have visited one of Sorkin's Candytopia pop-up experiences, you have an idea of just how many sweet treats Sorkin works with (and eats). For example, the life-sized, 1,000-square-foot holiday home that she and her team recently created for the Hulu special, "Candified: Home For The Holidays," took more than 325 different kinds of candy to bring it to life. There is one sweet treat, however, that the modern-day Willy Wonka avoids at all costs.
This sweet treat "scares" Candy Queen Jackie Sorkin
Spoiler alert: It's chocolate. Jackie Sorkin and her team of candy creators can get panicky around it. "I eat a lot of [chocolate] ... and I'm obsessed with it," Sorkin exclusively admitted to Mashed. "I love it very, very, very much. [But] I don't like to create with it."
If you ever want to hire the candy queen — just as Rihanna, Oprah, Katy Perry, and The Kardashians have — she might ask you to give up on your chocolate dreams. "I just am always like, 'I have another great idea that's not chocolate. Do you want to hear it?' And sometimes we can pivot," Sorkin revealed. There's a good reason that she and her team treat the sweet treat like the boogie man of the candy world. "I find chocolate work to be so beautiful and special. It's just not my lane. Chocolate scares me because it melts ... I just love to create with other more sustainable, durable types of candy," Sorkin revealed, adding, "The stress of the melting for a personality like mine or my team is just, it's like a five-alarm fire. ... So, I just decided a long time ago, 'Let's stay away from chocolate.'"
Jackie Sorkin didn't entirely escape chocolate when she and her team built the 1,000-square-foot holiday home for Hulu's "Candified: Home For The Holidays." You'll have to watch the four-episode special to find out more. For everyday reminders of life's sweeter side, follow Sorkin on Instagram.