We were lucky to catch up with Manal Hussein recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Manal, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I originally started baking for fun and for family and friends. Being Lebanese, food is our love language and desserts is my weapon of choice. I would post baked items on social media and slowly people would ask me to make something for them and I would. I still remember my first paid for order to this day. It was a fondant baby shower cake covered in blue fondant and yellow polka dots. I purchased rubber duckies and placed them on the top of the cake along with a large baby bottle. Now, many many years later, I could hand make all of those with ease. The boy is now in high school!

The more I would practice through trial and error, the better I would get. But, it took a lot of error and learning to get to where I am today. I knew I was creating something special, but I just did not have the confidence back then. However, I knew that if I could learn something from every error, then I could turn it into something more unique and special.

My recipes are all my own and have been developed over 15-20 years. I am really proud of them and can proudly say you cannot taste anything like my desserts anywhere else because of that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I own a bakery in Midtown Detroit that offers desserts like french macarons, cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, and other goodies. We also offer full service coffee and lattes made with housemade syrups like cookie butter latte, NILLA Banana Matcha and more!
I also teach classes in my Sugar Studio in Garden City. I teach how to make french macarons from scratch, filling and decorating cakes, kids class, and others baking and decorating classes. We can host private parties from team outtings to baby showers!
We even have a dessert/food truck where we make frozen custard sandwiches!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn is to stop pouring myself into everything and stop trying to do everything. Whether that is pouring my energy into people, a product creation, recipe development, etc. I have been exhausted my entire life, always trying to be better and do better. But, I had to learn that I can only output so much. So, it is important to try to figure out how to prioritize properly. Whether that is on myself or on my business. I have children now, so I have no choice, but to do that, otherwise I am spread incredibly thin.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I have built my audience on social media over many many years. I started my instagram page probably about 14/15 years ago when I was just starting off working at home. I built it pretty organically over the years. Things are SO different now though than they were back then. I used to purposely not post because I would sell out way to quickly of something if I posted it. Now, if you post something, you have to hope and pray the algorithm is on your side.
I think it is important now though to find your voice and build your brand not just on your product, but around yourself as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fortheloveofsugar.com/
• Instagram: @fortheloveofsugardetroit
• Facebook: @fortheloveofsugardetroit
• Yelp: For the Love of Sugar

Image Credits

Hayden Scott