When Amirah Kassem was asked by Wu-Tang Clan to create a custom cake for an art exhibit honoring the group’s 20th anniversary last fall, the rappers seemed skeptical that the baker was familiar with their legacy. “The first meeting was the funniest thing ever,” says Kassem, 27, who works out of her home in Brooklyn. “They’re looking at me like, ‘This little blue-eyed girl is not going to know anything about what we’re doing.’ ” But when someone mentioned their song “Ice Cream,” Kassem began rapping. “The whole room started laughing,” she says.
Related
Apparently, her skills paid off. Kassem’s one-woman business, Flour Shop, was commissioned to make five Wu-Tang-inspired cakes, including a chess set celebrating its 1993 classic “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’.”
The Mexico native, a former fashion stylist who started Flour Shop in 2012 with no formal culinary training, has also baked birthday cakes for Snoop Dogg and Mark Ronson (an electric-blue piano commissioned by the producer’s mother), a Barbie cake for David Byrne‘s musical Here Lies Love and a pyramid cake that spewed glitter for Katy Perry. Sting, Paul Simon and actors Jason Sudeikis and Sarah Jessica Parker are among her other customers; coming up are collaborations with Theophilus London and Dev Hynes. One secret to Kassem’s success is she keeps clients coming back: Wu-Tang teamed with her again for a T-shirt depicting an ice cream cake of its logo. It went on sale at wutangclan.com on Sept. 20, the same day as the group’s reunion show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Kassem says she’s putting a new twist on Wu-Tang’s hit “C.R.E.A.M.,” an acronym for “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” Says the baker, “It’s ‘Cake Rules Everything Around Me!’ “