The IT guru making chocolate treats

Zahra Jahalkan's career path was clear. Having graduated with a first-class degree in Information Technology from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), she knew that it would be easy to get a job in the field.

She made tens of applications, dropped her resume with multiple employers, and got nothing. "What do you do in such a situation? You go back to the drawing board and think of another way to eke out a living. I decided to start a baking business," she offers.

The 29-year-old was not new to baking. She was brought up in Mombasa and into a family that made cakes and cookies during various festivities. After completing secondary school, she even enrolled in a baking school where she learnt the basics. "At the university, I sometimes made cakes and sold them to my friends and schoolmates. I did this as a hobby."

YouTube

A few weeks into her marriage, Zahra started scouring the internet for more baking methods and techniques. Her drive then was to impress her husband. "I did this around 2016 and I found YouTube to be helpful. Through the platform, I watched videos from world chocolatiers and learnt how to temper and mould chocolate. I am largely a self-taught baker who has learnt online and through try and error," she offers.

Her husband, who has offered her great support including capital to kick-start the business, was worried about the business idea.

"My husband said, "What if it does not work out?" I told him that I had a gut feeling that the enterprise would succeed.

Zahra then bought some three moulds and started tempering chocolates and into the bakeware. The first trial was a fail but with the second, she got the hang of it and even added flavours and fillings. She reflects on her family and friend's reaction when she gave them to try. "They were impressed and encouraged me to start a sweet shop."

She gave it the name Choco bot. "I did not know how difficult sometimes it is to come up with a unique business name. Bot in IT loosely means "do many things which tied with chocolate, which is a true representation of the business – do many things with chocolates," Zahra says.

Working from home

From her kitchen, she makes handcrafted chocolate truffles, chocolate bars, hot chocolate spoons, choco pops, macarons, cupcakes, brownies, candies, and doughnuts among other treats.

"When I developed an interest in establishing a sweet shop, I discovered that we have a lot of bakers. Everywhere you go, this person is baking or somebody knows three bakers off the head. The competition in the industry is rife. I wanted to bring something unique. I handcraft each piece before I mould the chocolate, something like a Picasso painting. I am an artsy person and I try to inculcate that in my business. Also, my baked products are reasonably priced. For instance, eight pieces of chocolate go for Sh400 while a 12-piece chocolate truffle is Sh1,000.

Journey

Her monthly clientele base averages 50 clients. "It is just me in the kitchen except for the occasional help that I get from my husband. As such, I can only do so many orders at one time. However, I will soon be able to take in more orders as I expand the business into an actual bakery establishment," she offers.

Zahra started by posting online but she would hardly get feedback so she relied on the people she knew. "I learnt that putting adverts out, sponsoring posts and running promotions could get me more traffic to my page. However, my biggest marketing tool is word of mouth," she says.

Working from home also has its share of challenges. "I enjoy the fact that I can spend more time with my four-year-old son. However, my typical day involves playing with him, house chores, and the business. It was difficult getting used to the tight schedule or waking up very early and sleeping late. During those nights, getting from the bedroom to the kitchen felt like the longest walk in the world," she chuckles.

Great Kenyan Bake Off Season 2

This year, Zahra applied to participate in the Great Kenyan Bake Off Season 2, an offshoot of the BBC's Bake Off competition which debuted in Kenya in 2019. "The competition attracted thousands of bakers and the selection process was rigorous but luckily, the experiences of running Choco Bot coupled with my artsy and resilience flair saw me chosen as one of Kenya's top 12 amateur bakers," Zahra says.

This achievement was one of her greatest moments since taking up being a chocolatier. "I networked with other bakers and took lessons from baking experts." The show started airing a few days ago at a local television station.

[email protected]