Candace Nelson: Sprinkles Founder, Sugar Rush Judge

Long before she was handing out verdicts on Sugar Rush, Candace Nelson changed American baking retail with a single idea: a bakery that sold cupcakes and nothing else. Her judging chair on Netflix was earned the hard way, by building the business that kicked off an entire craze. Here is her story.

The investment banker who bet on cupcakes

Nelson's path into pastry was a career change. She worked as an investment banker before pivoting to baking, starting with a custom cake business from home in San Francisco. In 2005, she and her husband opened Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, widely credited as the world's first cupcake-only bakery. The timing was perfect: Sprinkles arrived just as the cupcake boom was igniting, and the brand became its most recognizable storefront, complete with a later innovation that became a tourist attraction in its own right, the cupcake ATM. Nelson sold Sprinkles to a private equity firm in 2012.

Cupcake Wars and the road to Netflix

Food Network came calling at the height of the craze, and Nelson spent years as a judge on Cupcake Wars, the network's cupcake-battle series. That run made her one of the most familiar faces in competitive baking television and led directly to Netflix, where she both starred as a judge and served as an executive producer on Sugar Rush from its 2018 debut. On the panel she sat alongside Australian patissier Adriano Zumbo, with a rotating guest judge each episode; the full breakdown of that bench is in our Sugar Rush judges guide.

Her judging style reflects her background: she evaluates like a founder as much as a pastry chef, quick to note when a bake is beautiful but would never sell, or humble but genuinely delicious. On a show as time-pressured as Sugar Rush, that practicality plays well. For how the show itself works, see our Sugar Rush overview.

The second act: pizza, books, and Shark Tank

Nelson did not stop at cupcakes. In 2017 she co-founded Pizzana, a Neo-Neapolitan pizzeria group that grew into an award-winning multi-location restaurant brand. In November 2022 she published Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe for Turning Your Passion Into Profit, a Wall Street Journal bestseller that packages her founder experience into business advice.

She has also crossed into investor television, appearing as a guest shark on ABC's Shark Tank in 2023, a natural fit given that she runs her own venture operation, CN2 Ventures, backing food, retail, and wellness startups with a stated focus on female and underrepresented founders. In 2025 she returned to the baking-competition world as a judge on Next Level Baker.

Why she matters to baking TV

Plenty of competition judges are great chefs. Nelson's distinct contribution is that she is a great chef who also built and sold one of the defining baking businesses of her era, then did it again in a different category. When she tells a Sugar Rush contestant that a confection could anchor a bakery case, it carries the weight of someone who has actually stocked one. That blend of pastry credibility and founder credibility is why she has stayed on screens for more than fifteen years, from Cupcake Wars through Sugar Rush and beyond.