Amirah Kassem

Last updated

Amirah Kassem (born January 8, 1987) is an American-born baker, author, designer and media personality. She is best known as the owner and founder of FLOUR SHOP and a judge on the Disney+ food-art series Foodtastic. [1] Her kitchen, table, home and clothing products are sold worldwide.

Contents

Amirah specializes in sculpting custom cakes without the use of fondant [2] and is also known for her "Explosion Cake." Her Cara the Unicorn Explosion Cake was featured as Instagram's most memorable trend of 2017. [3] She is also the best-selling author of The Power of Sprinkles: A Cake Book and children's titles The Magical Land of Birthdays series and board-book Bake a Rainbow Cake!

Early life and education

Amirah grew up in Chihuahua, Mexico where she learned to bake from her mother and grandmother. She moved back to her birthplace of El Paso, Texas at the age of 9 with her parents. [4] Later on, she attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in LA. [5]

Career

Flour Shop

In 2012 Amirah Kassem left the fashion industry to set up a high-concept bakery, Flour Shop. This is known for unusually-shaped cakes in the shapes of cheeseburgers, pizzas, buckets of popcorn and the well-known 'Explosion Cake'. The company specializes in creating baked goods without the use of fondant icing.

Flour Shop opened their Flagship Store in SoHo New York in November 2017 and in Beverly Hills, California in August 2020. Her clients have included Kim Kardashian, [6] Katy Perry and Beyonce, as well as brands likes Vans, [7] Louis Vuitton, [8] and Alice + Olivia.

Amirah has headlined food festivals like BottleRock, [9] Food and Wine Festival, [10] New York City Wine and Food Festival [11] and Catskills Festival. [12]

Television

Amirah will be starring as a judge in the upcoming Disney+ food-art series Foodtastic. The show is set to air later in 2021 and is hosted by Keke Palmer. [1] She has also frequently been featured as a guest judge on many food shows including: Sugar Rush, [13] Cupcake Championship, [14] Nailed It! Mexico, [15] Beat Bobby Flay, [16] Cake My Day [17] and Top Elf. [18]

Books

Amirah has released a cookbook, two children's fiction books, a board book and a calendar. Her cake book, The Power of Sprinkles, reached #1 on Amazon in Celebrity & TV Show Cookbooks and Cake Baking Books and peaked at #57 in Books on the Amazon Best Sellers Rank.

Her middle grade series, The Magical Land of Birthdays, follows a ten-year-old Amirah as she receives a magical cookbook. Amirah is transported to the Magical Land of Birthdays, where she meets three of her birthday buddies from different corners of the world—kids who share her exact birthday and are also about to turn 11. Amirah also coined the term "b-buds" (short for birthday buddies) for this series, which refers to anyone that shares the same birthday. [19]

Press

Amirah and her products have been featured on the cover of Bon Appétit , [20] Refinery29, Food & Wine , and other publications. She has also made many guest appearances on television, including TODAY, [21] The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers. [22] The Rachael Ray Show, [23] The Drew Barrymore Show [24] and Home & Family. [25]

Art

Amirah Kassem works frequently on collaborations with photographer Henry Hargreaves. Their work includes “Burning Calories” photo series, which is in a gallery in Venice, Italy as of November 2013. Kassem and Hargreaves also collaborated on a photo series in celebration of the Wu Tang Clan's 20th anniversary for the Wu Tang Brand. [26]

Amirah's work has also been featured in the Whitney Museum and Brooklyn Museum. In 2015, When the Brooklyn Museum celebrated Takashi Murakami, Amirah used 10,000 gumballs to create her own art installation, reinterpreting the Murakami flower. [27]

Design

In 2019, Amirah designed and launched a world-wide kitchen, table and food collection with Williams-Sonoma. Her line of FLOUR SHOP kitchen and table wares was called "playful and chic" as well as a "refined rainbow" by Elle Decor. [28]

In late 2019, Amirah also designed and launched a home collection with Pottery Barn brands, mostly focusing on Pottery Barn Kids. [29] The FLOUR SHOP collection was sold world-wide and included decor, bedding and tabletop items. [30]

In 2020, Amirah designed and launched a Vans limited edition fashion line in both footwear and clothing. [31] The FLOUR SHOP collection spans kids, women and men departments in footwear, clothing and accessories.

Fashion

Amirah Kassem began her career in fashion while attending FIDM. She started out working for 7 For All Mankind and Fred Segal. Eventually Kassem moved her way into high fashion through experiences at Interview Magazine and Karl Templer. She then moved to NYC, where she worked alongside Johan Lindeberg in the launch of BLKDNM. [32]

Personal life

Kassem currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and business partner, Ross "The Boss" Harrow. They have a baby girl named Coco.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cake</span> Flour-based baked sweet

Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Crocker</span> Brand and fictional character

Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. In 1954, General Mills introduced the red spoon logo with her signature, placing it on Gold Medal flour, Bisquick, and cake-mix packages. A portrait of Betty Crocker appears on printed advertisements, product packaging, and cookbooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shortbread</span> Scottish biscuit

Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda. Shortbread is widely associated with Christmas and Hogmanay festivities in Scotland, and some Scottish brands are exported around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gingerbread</span> Spiced dough used for baking

Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a moist loaf cake to forms nearly as crisp as a ginger snap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cupcake</span> Small single-serving cake, often frosted

A cupcake, fairy cake (BrE), or bun (IrE) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations such as fruit and candy may be applied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rusk</span> Hard, dry biscuit

A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lane cake</span> American cake

Lane cake, also known as prize cake or Alabama Lane cake, is a bourbon-laced baked cake traditional in the American South. It was invented or popularized by Emma Rylander Lane (1856-1904), a native and long-time resident of Americus, Georgia, who developed the recipe while living in Clayton, Alabama, in the 1890s. She published the original recipe in Some Good Things to Eat (1898). Her original recipe included 8 egg whites, 1 cup butter, 1 cup sweet milk, 2 cups sifted sugar, 3 ¼ cups sifted flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 tablespoon vanilla and called for the layers to be baked in pie tins lined with ungreased brown paper rather than in cake pans. The filling called for 8 egg yolks, 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup seeded raisins, 1 wine-glass of whiskey or brandy, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duff Goldman</span> American chef

Jeffrey Adam "Duff" Goldman is an American businessman, pastry chef, television personality, and writer. He is the executive chef of the Baltimore-based Charm City Cakes shop, which was featured in the Food Network reality television show Ace of Cakes, and his second, Los Angeles–based, shop Charm City Cakes West, which is featured in Food Network's Duff Till Dawn and "Cake Masters" series. His work has also been featured on the Food Network Challenge, Iron Chef America, Oprah, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Man v. Food, Buddy vs. Duff, Duff Takes the Cake, and Duff's Happy Fun Bake Time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spekkoek</span> Indonesian layered cake

Spekkoek is a type of Indonesian layer cake. It was developed during colonial times in the Dutch East Indies. The firm-textured cake is an Indo (Dutch-Indonesian) version of the multi-layered rice cakes that are usually seen in Southeast Asian desserts but using some Dutch ingredients like flour and butter. It contains a mix of Indonesian spices, such as cardamom, cinnamon, clove, mace and anise. The cake is made of flour and yolk and is rich in butter or margarine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainbow cookie</span> Italian-American cookie

Rainbow cookie or rainbow cake usually refers to a three-layered almond-flavored Italian-American cookie, but can also refer to any of a number of rainbow-colored confections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candace Nelson</span> Pastry chef

Candace Nelson is an Indonesian-born American pastry chef and judge on the television series Cupcake Wars and Sugar Rush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old-fashioned doughnut</span> Type of deep fried food

The old-fashioned doughnut is a term used for a variety of cake doughnut prepared in the shape of a ring with a cracked surface and tapered edges. While many early cookbooks included recipes for "old-fashioned donuts" that were made with yeast, the distinctive cake doughnuts sold in doughnut shops are made with chemical leavener and may have crisper texture compared to other styles of cake doughnuts. The cracked surface is usually glazed or coated with sugar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clementine cake</span> Cake flavored primarily with clementines.

Clementine cake is a flourless cake flavored primarily with whole unpeeled clementines and almonds. It may originate from an orange cake in Sephardic cuisine. In popular culture, the cake played a minor part in the plot of the 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Sherry Yard is an American chef, restaurateur and cookbook author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confetti cake</span> Cake with rainbow sprinkles

Confetti cake is a type of cake that has rainbow colored sprinkles baked into the batter. It is called confetti cake because when baked, the rainbow sprinkles melt into dots of bright color that resemble confetti. Typically the batter is either white, golden, or yellow to allow for a better visual effect; but chocolate, devil’s food, and strawberry cake variations also exist. The cake generally consists of flour, butter, baking powder, salt, sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, milk, and rainbow colored sprinkles. The cake normally has a frosting made of butter, salt, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and milk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Ptak</span> American baker and food writer

Claire Ptak is an American baker, food writer, and food stylist. She owns and runs a bakery-café Violet Cakes in London's East End. In addition, she has published an array of cookbooks and written a food column for The Guardian and The Observer. She is widely known for having baked the royal wedding cake for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – a layered sponge filled and covered with a lemon and elderflower buttercream icing.

Sylvia Weinstock was an American baker and cake decorator. She was known for making delicious, multi-tiered wedding cakes decorated with botanically accurate sugar flowers. She also created elaborate trompe-l'oeil cakes that looked like cars, a crate of wine, Fabergé eggs, and other objects.

Kim-Joy is a British baker and cookbook writer. She became one of two runners-up in the ninth series (2018) of The Great British Bake Off and won Bake Off's New Year 2022 special. She has written three cookbooks and is known for creating decorative baked goods often featuring whimsical themes and cute renderings of animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tammie Teclemariam</span> American wine journalist

Tammie Teclemariam is an American freelance food and wine writer. She is known for her social media posts about alleged racism in food and wine media organizations. Teclemarian’s tweet concerning a photo of Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport, which is perceived to be racially insensitive, led to his resignation from the magazine. Subsequently, several other individuals came forward with alleged instances of racism at the magazine. Other resignations of media figures have been connected to tweets by her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Clark-Bojin</span> Canadian producer, pie artist and author

Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin is a pie artist and media producer, credited with the creation of the "Piescraper" as well as popularizing the modern Pie Art Movement. She is the author of Pies Are Awesome: The Definitive Pie Art Book with foreword by Duff Goldman, and has appeared as a pie judge on the Food Network and The TODAY Show. Known as "ThePieous" on social media, Clark-Bojin's pie art has been featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not!, People, CNN, Business Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Food & Wine Magazine, as well as front-paging on Reddit.

References

  1. 1 2 Zorrilla, Mónica Marie (2021-01-27). "Keke Palmer to Host and Executive Produce 'Foodtastic,' a Build Competition Series on Disney Plus". Variety. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  2. ↑ Bell, Gabriel (19 August 2013). "Meet The Fashion Set's Cake Boss". Refinery29 . Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  3. ↑ "Instagram on Instagram: "Photo of @flourshop by @elizabethrenstrom "People eat with their eyes, so who wouldn't want to eat a rainbow? Or a unicorn?" asks Amirah…"". Instagram. Archived from the original on 2021-12-26. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  4. ↑ Gabriel Bell (August 20, 2013). "Month Of Visionaries: Meet The Fashion Set's Cake Boss". Refinery 29.
  5. ↑ "Amirah Kassem". LinkedIn .
  6. ↑ "You Need to See the Kardashian Kids' Epic Rainbow Birthday Cake (With a Surprise Inside!)". Bravo TV Official Site. 2018-06-04. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  7. ↑ Minton, Melissa. "Vans Is Completely Redesigning the Iconic White Slip-ons and I Can't Handle It". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  8. ↑ "The 2014 Whitney Studio Party Presented by Louis Vuitton". Vogue. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  9. ↑ "Amirah Kassem". BottleRock Napa Valley. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  10. ↑ Morganstern, Adam. "Culinary Stars Take Over A Private Venice Island For A Food And Wine Extravaganza". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  11. ↑ "Kassem, Amirah | Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One | October 11 – 14, 2018". Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One | October 11 – 14, 2018. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  12. ↑ "Profile". catskillsfestival.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  13. ↑ O Christmas Tree (Reality-TV), Amirah Kassem, Hunter March, Candace Nelson, Adriano Zumbo, 2019-11-29, retrieved 2021-04-19{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  14. ↑ Christmas in July (Reality-TV), Claire Andal Bueno, Nicholas Gomez, Amirah Kassem, Latricia Mckenzie-Haylard, 2019-07-08, retrieved 2021-04-19{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  15. ↑ Rodriguez, Jose; Bermejo, Jose Manuel Rodriguez (2019-02-08), Sweet Explosion (Game-Show, Reality-TV), Omar Chaparro, Amirah Kassem, Anna Ruiz, retrieved 2021-04-19
  16. ↑ Baked to Perfection (Reality-TV), Amirah Kassem, 2018-11-01, retrieved 2021-04-19{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. ↑ "NICKELODEON JOINS RACHAEL RAY AND EXPERT BAKER AMIRAH KASSEM TO SPRINKLE BIRTHDAY-CAKE JOY, IN CAKE MY DAY, AIRING FRIDAY, JULY 17, AT 7:30 P.M. (ET/PT) | Nick Press". NickPress. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  18. ↑ Pearlman, Michael (2019-12-20), Gingerbread House Party (Family, Game-Show), Ashley August, Cameron Fulton, Nataliz Jimenez, Amirah Kassem, retrieved 2021-04-19
  19. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "The Magical Land of Birthdays|Hardcover". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  20. ↑ Appétit, Bon. "The Holiday Issue 2020". Bon Appétit. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  21. ↑ "Make Amirah Kassem's colorful unicorn cake". TODAY.com. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  22. ↑ "Flour Shop's Amirah Kassem Made a Rainbow Explosion Cake with Seth Meyers". Food & Wine. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  23. ↑ "The "Rainbow Explosion" Cake Is the Birthday Cake You've Never Had, But Absolutely the One You Deserve". Rachael Ray Show. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  24. ↑ "Flour Shop's Amirah Kassem Teaches Drew How to Make Unicorn Rainbow Cake". www.thedrewbarrymoreshow.com. 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  25. ↑ "Amirah Kassem's Popcorn Cake - Home & Family". Hallmark Channel. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  26. ↑ Carey Dunne (November 14, 2013). "Wu-Tang Clan's 20th Birthday Cakes Ain't Nuthing To F' With". Co.DESIGN.
  27. ↑ Symonds, Alexandria. "Flour Shop's Installation for the Brooklyn Artists Ball Is a Gumball Homage to Murakami" . Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  28. ↑ Engelman, Nicole (2019-04-25). "These Insane Rainbow Explosion Cakes Make Every Day Your Birthday". ELLE Decor. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  29. ↑ "POTTERY BARN BRANDS PARTNER WITH FLOUR SHOP'S AMIRAH KASSEM". ir.williams-sonomainc.com. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  30. ↑ "Flour Shop and Pottery Barn Just Launched a Rainbow-Filled Home Collection". Observer. 2019-12-12. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  31. ↑ VANS, Kathleen Harper paid for by (2020-10-05). "This Viral Cake Creator's Colorful Fashion Line Is the Feel-Good Collab We All Need Right Now". POPSUGAR Fashion. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  32. ↑ Delphine Barguirdjian (July 2, 2013). "Flour Girl". Scene. Archived from the original on November 16, 2013.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.