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Creating a range of mouth-watering cakes and bakes is Mahmood Janahi's passion ... the banker who has found a new way of making some more dough!
An investment banker by day and a baker by night, Mahmood's double life affords him the opportunity to let his creative juices run wild in the kitchen. He has turned his childhood hobby into a business venture and spends his evenings icing his delicacies to perfection.
Mahmood started selling his baked goodies last year under the name of The Cakery. Lately he has rebranded his business as 'Mahmood Janahi, Cakes and Bakes' and is planning to reach out to a wider market with a new and detailed menu which apart from a variety of delicious desserts includes traditional cakes made with dates, saffron, rose and orange blossom and fat free brownie muffins.
A self-professed perfectionist, Mahmood, 27, runs a one-man-show from his family home in Arad. He insists on doing everything himself from scratch from crushing blueberries for icing to mixing ingredients to achieve a desirable batter.
He said: "I create but my mother's helper is the one who cleans up the mess after I'm done!"
Mahmood's love affair with baking began at the age of seven when as a way to rein in his naughtiness his grandmother brought a box of Betty Crocker's cake mix to keep him busy.
Soon he was mixing cardamoms and nuts to the cake mix to experiment with flavours.
In Australia, while pursuing his Masters Degree in human resources, Mahmood would often saunter into supermarkets and buy all sorts of different ingredients to experiment with them at home.
"But it was on my 24th birthday in Bahrain that my best mate Esra Janahi gifted me with a 'Kitchen Aid' which opened a whole new world for me.
"I could whip the cream better and generally get improved results on my baking," he explained. "When I first started selling my products I was very nervous and would slice the cake from the centre to see if it was OK and then bake a new cake all over again just in case it wasn't perfect. But the response from The Cakery was great and gradually I began to gain confidence.
"To this day my colleagues are my guinea pigs and whenever I want to introduce a menu item I usually bake a couple of dozen samplers and distribute them in my office to get feedback."
Mahmood works at Gulf Finance House and fills up his spare time watching food shows on television and reading up on and researching a variety of ingredients. "I get inspired by ingredients rather than a recipe and then create my own. I believe that if I follow a generic recipe then anyone can do that and produce what I'm selling," he added.
"I want to my food to be unique and memorable for all the right reasons."
His personal favourite from his menu is a Dutch Chocolate Truffle Cake which is bittersweet featuring caramel in the middle. "It is very decadent and appropriate for every mood, so very rich and chocolicious!" he exclaimed.
Now with the re-launching of his business, Mahmood is in the process of constructing his own working kitchen at the side of the existing family home. Creativity runs in his family and his sister Ameena, 24, is a makeup artist and Sara, 17, is into photography. Mahmood's banker dad, Ali Janahi, and mother, Latifa Al Kooheji, an ex-Batelco employee, are very supportive of their son's unconventional hobby and latest entrepreneurial venture.
"The only thing my mother wants is for me to be out of her kitchen which is why I'm building my own! The food business all over the world is dominated by male chefs. It is just the perception that the kitchen is a woman's domain," he explained.
