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Bahraini pastry chef and cake decorating queen Sondus Al Baharna has all the right ingredients to rise to the top of the gastronomic ladder as she has joined a coveted culinary chain by creating show-stopping designs such as a three metre tall tower of sweet delight.
The professional sugarcraft artist went from working in banking and finance, as well as real estate and education, to the career that had her heart from the start ... baking.
“Baking is something I have been passionate about from a very young age,” said Sondus, from Saar, who holds certifications from the International Centre for Culinary Arts (ICCA), Culina Training from Wilton US, Silikomart Italy and London PME-UK, amongst other masterclass certifications from Russia, America, Vietnam and the UK.
“I’ve been baking cakes for literally as long as I can remember and always wanted to be involved in everything my mother was doing in the kitchen.
“One day we were parked outside a tiny bakery that made local Bahraini bread and I was so amazed by the way the baker inside was handling the dough, so I turned to my mother and told her that I wanted to be a baker. I was about four years old at the time.”
Over the years she found the greatest satisfaction was baking for her friends and family. At 17, she started a small home business called Cindy’s Goodies and catered to a local school, supplying daily baked goods.
Years later, she randomly decided to make her first novelty cake of Homer Simpson for her dad’s birthday. She was then hooked.
Since 2016, she has been teaching the art of baking and cake decorating which is also the same year she started Cindylou Sugarcraft for celebrations and novelty cakes. Her most remarkable cake to date is a 16-layered wedding masterpiece.
“I decorated it with 2,500 sugar flowers and 170 wired wafer flowers, all handmade,” said the recipe developer and consultant. “It required about 50kg of sugar and chocolate to cover and needed to be assembled at the venue due to its size and weight.
“It actually sat on a table that was about a metre or so high as well; so it looked even taller! This is my tallest and biggest cake yet, and it took me about one month to finish preparing all the handmade flowers.”
Her other cake creations that turned heads include her rabbit and dragon, but what is her favourite?
“Each cake has a story, struggle and victory behind it and I think that I’ll continue to have new favourites over the years,” she said. “If I had to choose though then three cakes come to mind— my son Bader’s first birthday cake because of the sentiment attached to it, my husband’s horse bust birthday cake and of course the biggest wedding cake I ever made because of the happiness and sense of accomplishment I felt when it was presented.”
Her flourishing skill set whisked her an invitation to the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs international gastronomic society which boasts 26,000 members in more than 120 countries including Bahrain called Bailliage of Bahrein.
Today, all bailliages offer fine dining events, often black tie, in the best local restaurants and hotels. The menus and dishes are created exclusively for these dinners by the chefs, many of whom are also members of the Confrérie.
Each bailliage also holds one grand gala event each year to celebrate the induction of new members such as Sondus’s recent initiation. Members receive a distinctive ribbon which is worn at Chaîne gatherings.
Sondus dreams of creating a royal wedding cake some day and said she would continue to learn and strive to improve herself.
For details, follow @cindylou.bh on Instagram
