Many of us have a story about the vibrant sweets that epitomized Easter to us as kids: Gazing at the intricate panoramic sugar eggs we wanted to eat but couldn’t. Misguidedly shoving as many Peeps as possible into our mouths. Marveling at the carved chocolate Easter bunnies in our baskets.
One of those sentimental treats—sugar egg dioramas—is something of a lost art, dating back to a 19th-century Victorian tradition of making tiny springtime dioramas in molded sugar shells. But today, people like sugar artist Dawn Nemec of Sugarscape Eggs are bringing the traditional edible decor to a new generation by selling her creations on Etsy. In her pastel-hued pieces, Nemec crafts magical scenes of lambs and bunnies in miniature fields of flowers, using a crystal sugar shell, royal icing, and sugar pastillage.
Nemec, who is based in La Selva Beach, California, launched her small business in 2020 after spending about 20 years decorating wedding cakes and high-end, elaborate creations like the ones you’d see on Is It Cake?, the Netflix show about desserts disguised as hyper-realistic objects.
Growing up, she often received sugar panoramic eggs in her Easter baskets. She always found them particularly special because she loved The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, a 1939 children’s picture book written by DuBose Heyward and illustrated by Marjorie Flack. In the book, the bunny heroine is tasked with delivering a panoramic sugar egg that “glittered like a diamond” to a sick child. Nemec eventually began making her own sugar eggs with designs based on the book, and has since found that they’re the most popular offerings in her shop.
