Aimee France fka YungKombucha420

Baker

Folks, this one was a long time coming. The woman, the myth, the legend Miss Aimee France (formerly known as yungkombucha420) was one of the first people I told that I was planning to start this newsletter/podcast. To take it a little further back, Aimee and I have known each other since 2020. In the early days of the pandemic, we both did instagram takeovers for the brand STAATSBALLETT in which I took followers along for what was an excruciatingly boring and not very aesthetically pleasing day, and Aimee took followers along her very cool and baker-centric day. I was one parts jealous that she had such a fabulous take over, but three parts intrigued in her and what she was making. I started following her that day, and got to watch as she developed her now hugely successful cake business and found myself incredibly anxious for my return to New York so I could commission a birthday cake for my first post-lockdown birthday party. A year or so goes by and I get to do exactly that and to the surprise of exactly no one, the cake was the best dessert I had ever tasted. And since then, her cakes have been a mainstay of every birthday party of mine thereafter, and the thing (to both my pride and chagrin) my friends look forward to most at every birthday party of mine. 

Despite her massive success which has landed her in the likes of Vogue and The New York Times, Aimee is only 25 years old. And to boot, has not had any formal culinary training. She is completely self-taught, and incredibly disciplined. Part of what drew me to Aimee, aside from her incredibly unique and always seasonal ingredients, was the obvious fact that she takes her craft extremely seriously. Even the very early process of commissioning my first birthday cake with her fascinated me because it was so collaborative and thoughtful. A far cry from picking a list of varietal cake flavors and customizing what the frosting script should say, like many of us have come to expect from our bakers. 

As much as Aimee is a baker, she is also a tastemaker, and her ability to do that comes from how extensively she researches and earnestly loves the world of food. Every technique she uses she has spent months if not years perfecting, and she is extremely adept at pulling inspiration from the best and brightest in the culinary world and making it completely her own. 

"Right before the pandemic, this was February 2020, I got so sick [. . .] all I did for a week was watch Bon Appétit Test Kitchen videos. Every Claire Saffitz video you could find, I watched it all. I feel like there are people on Instagram from the original food community that I took inspiration from. It was so small and we were all posting and it was just fun and new."

Further, what Aimee has in talent she also has in style. As famous as her cakes have made her, she consistently goes viral for her incredible outfits, taste in music, and her unique way of engaging with her audience which both welcomes them into her kitchen (literally, much of her content is filmed in her kitchen) but preserves her privacy. While she is keen on taking her followers along for a trip to the grocery store to give them a look into how her ingredient curation process takes place, she will never reveal her exact recipe and ingredients base, because after all, that is her business and livelihood. The few recipes that she does share are meticulously tested for weeks and months before it is formally shared and announced. 

As for her style and essentials, Aimee is equal parts functional and cool. To her an ideal outfit is a great pair of pants, a tank top or turtleneck (seasonal dependent), comfortable shoes, a sweater, and an always uber cool pair of sunglasses (my personal favorite part of my farmers market rendezvous with Aimee.) Her essentials are: 

Daily lists 

Chapstick (Burt’s Bees or Lanolips)

Good pair of house shoes and socks 

Baby blanket 

Music as background noise

If by some chance you live under a rock and don’t know where to find Aimee, she is on Instagram and TikTok, and if you know what’s good for you, commission one of her cakes, catch her at a pop up, or try to snag a weekly mini cake.