Amirah Kassem - The Power of Sprinkles: A Cake Book by the Founder of Flour Shop

I still remember the first cake I ever made. I was nine years old, and it was for my little brother on his birthday. He just loved M&Ms, so I covered the entire cake in them. I remember thinking, This is the most creative cake, ever! I spent so much time placing each M&M in a specific order, so there was never a red next to a red, a yellow next to a yellow. He loved ithe was so happy, and it made me happy to make him happy. I actually feel that way about every cake I make today.

Still, it took a long time to get from that first cake to where I am nowlooking back, it kind of all makes sense.

I grew up in northern Mexico, in Juarez. My mom was born in Mexico, and my father was born in Kuwait. My exposure to these two unique cultures growing up allowed me to experience foods and flavors from entirely different parts of the world. Plus, I was also going to school in El Paso, Texasthe 915!across the border every day. In Mexico, theres so much color, vibrancy, and spice. My father came from a completely different background, with its own whimsy. I draw most of my flavor inspiration from those places.

Mostly, I feel lucky I grew up in a house where it was okay to play with color. I was even encouraged to make a mess! My mom, who is super creative and crafty, let me paint my room pink when I was little.

My mom was the Pinterest mom before Pinterest even existed. My friends were definitely jealous of my lunchboxes, because they were just so detailed and cute. She would cut things out into shapes and add notes and tiny individual bottles of ground chiles for me to use. I always baked with her, toomy cake recipe is her recipe adapted over time. Everyone looked forward to coming to my house for her magical dinners. People would ask my mom if she could make their holiday meals for them. She is that good!

Oh, and my birthday parties growing up were massive!

Every little detail was planned, from the invitations to the goodie bags, which were my favorite things to make. If you ever said so much as Hi! to my mom, you were invited. Thats just who she is. She set an example to constantly spread joy to everyone around her, and its what I aim to do today.

I dont remember most of the gifts I got as a child, but I still remember those moments when we blew out the candles on my cakes, and I remember every cake. It was the best part of my birthday, and my mom made my cakes! One time she made me a Little Mermaid cake and it was actually human sized. It was the biggest cake I had ever seen! (Shes really the talented one. I just added food coloring and sprinkles.) That moment when youd cut the cake was soooooooooo specialnot just for you, but for everyone celebrating. You just felt this joy: Im about to smash my face in some cake!

But, even so, I never imagined Id be a cake maker. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would just say, Im going to be amazing! Or, I want to be successful. I spoke in exclamations and adjectives, but never really named a specific job or career. (I still kind of answer questions like that: What will it be? Colorful! Fun! Amazing!)

For as long as I can remember, when I picked up fashion magazines or traveled to Los Angeles, the fabrics and textures and patterns jumped out at me. They made me so inspired: I loved expressing myself through everything I wore, down to my nail polishI was always changing my nail polish. (And still do!) All throughout my childhood, middle school, and high school, I pictured myself one day moving to a big city, to be in the spotlight and do all things creative. I just had this sort of vision for my life, of having so much fun!

I dont know if it was Clueless or Carrie Bradshaw, but I decided fashion school was next, and I headed off to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in L.A. I realized while in school that I wanted to work in the industry more than I wanted to learn about it: I needed to get a job. I ended up as a production manager at a large company when I was only twenty years old, when I was still in school. (They didnt know how old I was!) I just loved it: That exposure to fashion in L.A. sparked my fascination (fashionation?), and I decided I wanted to see the runways and magazines and how fashion was being created in New York. So after graduation, I moved to the Big Apple in search of thatand big pizza! I didnt know a single person when I moved there. But I worked for different magazines and stylists, helping behind the scenes on photo shoots, seeing all of the magic happening in front of me. I just loved everything about it, especially the planning and the events.

This entire time, baking as my career never crossed my minduntil I started thinking about how I spent my time when I wasnt at work. Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I was making cakes for all my friends birthdays. I would spend forever planning out their cake, deciding what theyd like and how it should look and taste. Ive always been obsessed with birthdaysnot just my own, but anyone close to me or around me. My entire calendar is practically just peoples birthdays. Then, when I moved to New York, I started baking cakes for birthdays at work, or baking because I just wanted to celebrate! I wanted to create something for every occasion, since everyone around you gets to share that moment of sprinkles and smiles.

People started asking me, Whered you buy this cake? Where can I get one? Can we shoot this in a magazine? More and more, these questions subconsciously planted sprinkle seeds in the back of my head: This is fun, maybe this is what I want to do.

I was also baking in my spare time for a friend of mine who had recently opened a store in SoHo. She wanted some food in her shop, so I was making these little round cakes and putting them in the store for her to sell. The store was selling out of them, and soon they wanted more and more. People started calling me the cake girl. But this was my side gig! How was I supposed to make more? I was already getting up before work because I really loved to bake! It was in that moment I realized I was more excited about cake than my current job.

So in 2012 I jumped into the deep end of the sprinkle pool and decided: Baking is what Im going to do.

I quit my job, and started baking a few cakes out of my apartment while I figured out the logistics of what and where Flour Shop would be. It was a huge risk. I didnt go to culinary school. I was never trained by a pastry chef. Id never even worked in a kitchen! I had no idea what I was doing, but I had my mothers recipes in one hand, and sprinkles in the other, and I was ready to bake my empire from scratch.