Emirati businesswoman still hungry to find the sweet spot

It was a gallette des rois - a buttery puff pastry confection - that set Emirati Lamia Ahmed Al Hashly on her entrepreneurial journey to launch Blossom Sweets in Abu Dhabi.

Lamia Ahmed Al Hashly, owner and founder of Blossom Sweets. Fatima Al Marzooqi /The National.

It was a galette des rois — a buttery puff pastry confection filled with almond cream — that nearly got the better of Lamia Ahmed Al Hashly.

An avid baker since the age of 15, the Emirati started broadening her repertoire by collecting books on baking and sampling new cakes and deserts as she travelled in Europe and Asia.

But try as she might, she just couldn’t get the galette des rois she made at home in Abu Dhabi to taste the same as the pastries she had sampled in Paris.

So she hired a professional pastry chef to teach her the technique.

“I wanted to master my skills in baking,” the 29-year-old explains. “Whenever I had difficulties creating one of the deserts that I wanted so much to do I would hire a personal pastry chef to come and actually train me how to do it. That’s how I developed.”

One thing led to another. She started baking for family and friends “to test the water” and then set out to open her own outfit. She launched with Blossom Sweets in Abu Dhabi’s Al Mamoora area in 2011, purveying cupcakes and cheesecakes alongside a small cafe for those eating in. She chose the name because it was “cheerful” and to suggest something that would keep on blooming.

Going from baking at home to establishing a bakery and a store was obviously a big step. And it took the entrepreneur three years — a period in which she also became a mother.

“Jumping between motherhood and business is not an easy thing,” she says. “I try to commit equally to each.”

She made finding the right team the crux of her business plan, saying it helped enormously going into partnership with her sister.

“She is single and doesn’t have as many responsibilities as I do,” she explains. “So we kind of divide the work and we bring in different strengths to the business.”

While Ms Al Hashly has a background in graphic design — this is what she studied at Zayed University — focusing on recipes and cake designs, her sister takes care of operations and marketing. Instagram and customers’ endorsements of their products via social media have proved invaluable, she says.

Hiring other members of the team proved to be trickier.

“I tried to hire the right people, the right team, so that we can actually be successful,” she says. “A team that could understand my vision. It wasn’t easy. We are still changing staff, hiring staff, finding the right people. It wasn’t right [at] the start. You learn from your mistakes – we are almost there.”

Setting up a commercial kitchen and picking the right location for the store was also time consuming.

“You need to find the right equipment,” she recalls. “Everyone just wants to sell you what they have. They see you are a young girl and they think they can just make you buy whatever they think is right for them, not you.”

But with expansion plans in Abu Dhabi and, in time, Dubai, Ms Al Hashly is already upgrading her Mussaffah kitchen and moving to larger premises.

The shop location she is happy with. Since Blossom Sweets opened, offices, cafes and mini markets have sprung up in what was previously a rather lonely spot. The increased competition, though, is something she welcomes.

“Competition is very healthy,” she reflects. “It pushes you to do more and makes me more involved in the business. I research more and try to come up with new ideas that can help us stand out.”

Ms Al Hashly continues to bring in outside specialists to develop her and her staff’s skills. Most recently, she hired the Canadian cake designer Lori Hutchinson, know as the Cakestress, to give a class.

This makes sense because while 50 per cent of the business is over-the-counter sales, the other half is advance cake orders for special occasions.

“We’ve done massive orders in a very tight time frame,” she says. “We’ve been challenged a lot, and I must say I feel very proud of my team.”

One such order was for 500 mini cakes with five days notice — the businesswoman usually recommends booking at least two weeks in advance.

Since going into business, Ms Al Hashly admits to baking less than she did previously. She prefers feed her children less sugar, so she now prepares healthier treats at home containing flak and chia seeds. She is also more selective over the sweet treats she consumes herself.

“Though I love dessert I’ve become pickier over the years,” she says, confessing to being “a pain” when her chef sends over new ideas to try out. “It has to be really good to satisfy my taste buds.”

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