About

Hello! I’m so happy you are here and reading a bit about me. I won’t make it too long – My Name is Eliane, I’m Lebanese, and I moved to Dubai in 2011 and I am now happily married 🙂 I started my career as an Auditor, did that for 6 years then I moved to Finance, and for the last 5 years I’m working in compliance… (Yes, my full time job has nothing to do with food!) . If you continue reading, you will see how my passion for baking started and how i ended up being a certified pastry chef.

I made this website to share with you my favorite recipes. It’s all about Plant-Based, Gluten Free and allergy friendly recipes. All made with very simple ingredients. I hope you will find something you like and get addicted too 🙂

Why I Love Baking…

Baking is magic, you add one ingredient on top of the other; they don’t necessarily look or taste nice by themselves, but somehow when you mix them together, watch the quantity and the sequence of mixing, add love and passion to your mix and magic happens! You get delicious, enjoyable, charming, divine, and delightful dessert which gets you drooling and gives you bursts of joy with every bite you have.

How I Started…

As a kid, I used to look forward to come back home from school and see what my mom had baked. There was always something in the oven, she used to fill the house with homemade goodies that taste and smell so good. I was addicted to that smell and it made home a warm and cozy place. I never really tried to help her preparing them, I was just enjoying eating them. At that time, becoming a baker was never something I imagined.

Later on, when I moved and lived by myself, I started making my own food and learned cooking and then moved to baking. I also developed an intolerance to anything that contains dairy products, peanuts, cherries, and gluten. I wasn’t aware at the beginning until it became really severe. Since then, I had to change my eating habits and diet completely. At the beginning it was really difficult. At that time, gluten and dairy free options were limited and there weren’t too many restaurants that are allergy friendly so I was obliged to make my own food. That in addition to the fact that I do not eat meat, chicken, and fried/oily food, made outings to restaurants not the most enjoyable experience.

One day i enrolled in a course at a pastry school just to learn basics. Then, by the end of the course, i registered for 10 other courses and i was taking them during my weekends as I’m working during the week… Once I completed my 5th course, i realized that i really enjoy baking and I want to get better, so I enrolled for the professional pastry chef course and I attended courses for a whole year and studied, and from there, you know what happened 🙂

Besides baking, I like:

– Watersports

– Boxing

– Travelling and collecting souvenirs from each country

– vine leaves & hummus (haha)

– good coffee

– salsa and R&B music

– my family, my nephew, my niece, and my friends