since 2010
Please introduce yourself to our readers. I am Ayah Shedeed. I’m 26 years old, married to my best friend for the past three years and a mother of 3 fur babies! Tell us about your education. I graduated from the International Academy of Kuwait in 2007, then proceeded with my diploma and bachelors degree in Business Marketing at the Australian College of Kuwait, graduating in 2012. Tell us about your career journey. The cake business started a few months after I graduated from university and couldn’t find a proper job in the marketing field. On birthdays and special occasions I would make customized cakes for family and friends as a surprise. It was the perfect way to practice something I always admired and had an interest in. Then one day, my husband created an account on Instagram and posted images of the cakes I had previously made. At first I was not brave enough to take the next step. I had the idea of all these big bakeries and professional cake decorators that I would be competing with and I was obviously not up to their standards, which to be honest intimidated me. After a whole lot of convincing, I finally decided to 068
MARCH 2017
give it a shot and posted more pictures of my cakes, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping people would like my work and contact me. Thankfully, I managed to attract a large number of people and started getting daily orders. I can proudly say this is probably one of the best decisions I took back then and of course a big thank you to my supporting husband for pushing me into that field. Not forgetting my parents for always being my number one fans and taste testers! How did you get an interest in baking? Who was your inspiration? I have always had a passion for baking since I was a little kid. I remember I used to watch my mother or my late grandmother whip up a cake batter or cookie dough. I would help dump in all of the ingredients, knead ka’ak doughs for Eid, portion out cookies in a cookie sheet and so on. The process itself was so much fun from a kid’s point of view. The best part was when any kind of sauce was poured on the cake or when the cookies were stuffed/sandwiched together. Did you take any formal training for furthering your techniques? Who needs formal training nowadays when you have talent, YouTube and Google?! Surprisingly,