Cotton candy creations, like puppies, unicorns and Minions, come in wild flavors like grape, maple bacon or dill pickle at shop nestled inside Blissful Whisk

When Jacey Dawis makes cotton candy, it’s not usually a fluffy cone typically spun at the fair. Her creations are much more artistic, shaped to be everything from a unicorn to a flower to a Minion.

Dawis owns and operates Spokane Sugar Candy inside the Blissful Whisk coffee shop in Spokane Valley. She’s open four days a week, using different colors and flavors of cotton candy to make her creations.

Though Dawis is only 27, she has years of experience.

“I’ve done cotton candy for 20 years,” she said. “I grew up making cotton candy in the carnival. My parents still own that carnival.”

Dawis wanted to create her own business, however, and stop traveling with the carnival.

“It is a lot,” she said. “It’s exhausting. A different city, a different state every week.”

Her experience in working in family’s carnival gave her an important foundation.

“I’ve always been in the management or office positions,” she said. “I’ve been shaped into becoming my own boss.”

She started out by making cotton candy cakes that she sold on Facebook Marketplace, then expanded to making different characters and animals. Last year around this time, she had a space inside the Spokane Valley Mall. She frequently visited Blissful Whisk as a customer and has been friends with the owner of the coffee shop for years. When she heard there was an option to rent some space inside the coffee shop, she applied.

“Things have been going great,” she said.

Though cotton candy can get a bad rap because it is made of sugar, Dawis said a little sugar goes a long way. One tablespoon of sugar is enough to make a small cone of cotton candy, about the same amount of sugar found in a package of skittles, she said.

“It’s pure, flavored colored sugar,” she said. “All organic.”

Dawis offers cotton candy in more than 20 different flavors. In addition to common flavors like blueberry, cherry, grape, strawberry and watermelon, there are also more unusual flavors like dill pickle, maple bacon, passion fruit and green apple. Flavors can be purchased by the cone, bag or tub.

One of the more popular things Dawis sells is Flavor Wave Rock Candy, which is pre-bagged and combines multiple flavors.

“Every bite you take, you’ll taste each of our 20 flavors,” she said. “It’s going to shift flavors in your mouth. It just flies off the shelf.”

The Spokane Sugar Candy menu also includes milkshakes, which can be made with or without cotton candy, and ice cream by the scoop. The ice cream is made by Cascade Glacier.

Dawis is a particular fan of the S’mores Milkshake, which combines chocolate ice cream mixed with marshmallows rimmed with marshmallow fluff rolled in graham crackers and topped with whipped cream, a chocolate bar, graham crackers and chocolate sauce.

“It’s a cascade of madness,” she said.

People can order cotton candy ahead of time online at www.spokanesugarcandy.com or come into the store and order in person. Dawis said she likes to prepare people’s orders while they watch.

“All of it is hand-made shapes,” she said. “I craft every single little piece.”

She describes it as a cotton candy show to have a character made out of cotton candy in front of you.

“We give them the greatest show,” she said. “It’s the experience.”

The fact that cotton candy is made out of only sugar means that almost everyone can eat it, even those who have allergies to dairy or other ingredients commonly found in desserts, Dawis said. Several of the flavors are made without any dye.

“Many kids have allergies to so many things,” she said. “I’ve fed so many people their first dessert of any kind.”

Dawis is a one-woman show and does everything herself. She spends the days the shop isn’t open doing prep work and making online orders. One of her main goals is to keep what she sells affordable.

“I’m just here to give people a fun experience, to give them a treat,” she said. “I feel like I was born to do this.”