We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zohar Cohen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Zohar, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

I love to bake! I believe that everyone can bake beautiful desserts without previous experience.
I am a professional Pastry Chef since 2009 and have been passing on my knowledge to many kids, adults, and company employees over the years with baking classes and workshops.
I arrived in San Diego 6 years ago will my husband and our 3 daughters and after 6 months I started to teach kids how to bake in an after-school program in a private school. After a while, I developed a baking program as an after-school baking class enrichment and worked with school districts, private schools, organizations, and nonprofit organizations.
Once the pandemic happened, all the schools and organizations immediately closed, and everyone moved to online mode.
I needed to reinvent myself and quickly adjust to our new reality. I started offering online baking classes and courses. Suddenly I had students all over the world, across the States, Canada, and even Australia.
I was amazed to discover how well the online baking classes work and how easy it became to reach people around the globe.
After a while, I developed a new product: DIY Baking Box. Customers can subscribe to my website and get a surprise DIY box once a month to their house. The box includes premeasured dry ingredients, an apron, a chef hat, a reusable baking tool, a detailed recipe, wet ingredients shopping list, and ALL you need to bake a beautiful dessert.
All the recipes are easy to make and guarantee a fun experience for the entire family to do together.
I started small and now I have subscribers all over the state, I added theme subscriptions such as
Around the World, Holidays, and Healthy Desserts. I also work with companies and organizations on team-building events and started to sell on Amazon as well.
The DIY Baking Boxes are so much fun, help create memories in the kitchen, empower the kids to gain confidence as a junior chefs, keep the parents happy with a messy free kitchen, and can be easily shipped.
The pandemic completely changed my business model. It made me look at the world from a different perspective, opened new opportunities for me, made me think outside of the box, and taught me how to balance work-family time and embrace the unexpected changes that the world is challenging us with.

Zohar, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Since I remembered, I loved to bake. When I was 16, I had my first cake business. We lived in a Moshav in Israel, I was in high school, and every Thursday after school, I baked 3 types of cakes: Chocolate, Banana Bread and Baked Cheesecake. I would wake up at 5:30 am on Friday and deliver the cakes to all the local grocery stores in the area. All the cakes were sold and my small business from my parent’s home grew. I found wholesale prices for the cake’s boxes, created labels, designed my brand, and negotiated the costs of the ingredients- everything to have a profitable business. The years went by, I started my first degree in Business and Marketing, my second degree in Law got married, and had my first baby girl. All those years I had my own business as a headhunter, HR for startups and high-tech companies. After I had my firstborn, I looked back at my life and decided to go back to my happy place. I went to a culinary school and became a professional Pastry Chef.
One day, my mom took my girls to a baking class, and they returned with basic cookies and simple cupcake decorations. I was very surprised as this baking class was very expensive, and it immediately made me think that I can do better. I created a business model and did some baking classes pilot for friends’ kids until I found the winning combination. From there, I went on a new journey and started to have many requests to open more groups until I eventually worked as a headhunter in the morning, doing kids baking classes in the afternoon and adults’ baking classes in the evenings. I enjoyed passing on my knowledge and simplifying the baking secrets to fun and easy recipes that everyone can make beautiful desserts without previous experience in baking. Over the years I took more courses and expanded my knowledge with new techniques and recipes. In 2016, my husband got a job offer and we decided to relocate ourselves and move to San Diego. I started to do baking classes for kids after school and created morning groups for adults. I needed to invent myself all over and my business from scratch. Step by step I could offer many baking classes for kids, baking workshops for adults, baking classes for companies and organizations, private events, baking birthday parties, and kids baking camps.
Once the pandemic happened, it immediately changed to game rules. I needed to rebuild my business and design a new model for online baking classes, workshops, courses, camps, and team building. I started to take videos of any dessert I make, made tutorial videos, came up with new recipes, designed a healthy desserts course, and started to be very
online oriented.
Along with the virtual classes, I designed a new product: DIY Baking Boxes.
As a mom and especially as a baker mom that my girls are baking with me since they were 2 years old, I understand the need for a clean and organized kitchen. I understand the never-ending need to come up with fun activities and new experiences for your kids and I understand that we all try to stick to a budget.
Our DIY Baking Box subscription solves all the above!
With our DIY Baking Box subscription, you will receive a surprise DIY Box once a month to your house. The box includes premeasured dry ingredients, an apron, a chef hat, a reusable baking tool, a detailed recipe, wet ingredients shopping list, kitchen safety rules, a tools list, and ALL you need to bake a beautiful dessert. Our DIY Baking boxes will keep the kitchen clean, supply the kids with a unique and fun activity, keeps the parents happy, and creates an unforgettable experience- ALL in 1 box!
We are there for you. We personalized each box and customized it to your needs. We can adjust the recipes accordingly to any allergies and food sensitivity. We are celebrating your birthday together with a special Birthday Box. We send you a short video of “how to make” the recipe with each box and we are always here to answer any question or concern.
Each box comes with a mindfulness quote that empowers your kids to grow and with a coloring page sticker, your kids can decorate the box for reuse.
I am proud to say that not only that our DIY Baking Boxes solve many day-to-day challenges that we, as parents, experience with our kids, but by creating the DIY Boxes, I managed to include my kids in the process. My girls help me take videos and pictures and help with the editing, they go over my grammar and correct my English, and they are my testers- they taste every new recipe that I make before packing it in the box. It makes me happy to see that they are part of the process in so many ways and it charges them as much as it charges me. It is a family business 😊

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My journey in Israel started way back in the 90’ but I would like to share my journey in San Diego. I was born, raised, and lived in Israel all my life. In August 2016, we moved to San Diego.
I suddenly found myself in a new country with a new culture, without family and friends, and with 3 little girls that did not speak any English. It was a scary situation that I did not ever experience before. At first, I “worked” on making sure that my kids will settle in school and scheduled tons of playdates for them (also- it was a new concept for me). After 6 months, I started to teach kids how to bake as part of an enrichment school program and started to offer baking classes for adults. Immediately I understood that I’m in a different territory. The baking part may be the same but the culture, the people, the taste, and the flavors are completely different.
I had to study all about the American culture, and America’s favorite desserts and flavors, I rebuilt my classes and adjusted myself. It took me a lot of time, with a lot of failures and frustrations along the way until I found the right way of speaking to the American people and still bringing my Israeli me. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit and go back to my comfortable and familiar place, but once I looked at my kids and saw that they were starting to pick up the new language, have friends, and be happy again, I gathered myself together and put all my energy in rebuilding myself in a new country. It was not easy, and it took a lot of me to pull this off, but I would do it again as I know besides breaking my walls and succeeding in being out of my comfort zone, I also taught my girls a very important life lesson that I hoped they will take with them in life.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe in people, and I believe in a personal connection. All my life, I kept being there for people in both my professional and my personal life.
Before COVID, I stayed connected with my students and with their parents. All my customers knew they could call or email me with any questions or concerns. I have always paid attention to my customer’s food sensitivity and allergies and made sure that everyone could participate in the class with the correct substitutes.
After COVID, I continued to make everything customized and personalized.
With our DIY Baking Boxes, even though I never saw or met the person who subscribed, I asked questions and know his/hers birth date, what he/she likes, if they have any food sensitivities or allergies, their age, and what their favorite holidays are. I also include in the box a personal note from me, and they know that they can always contact me for anything.,
My reputation, both in my business in Israel and in my business in San Diego, was built and based on people, and still is with spending almost zero $ on marketing.
People have a lot of power. Every day I am getting emails and calls from new customers that were referred to me via recommendation. Be good, be yourself, and do not try to be someone that you are not. Believe in yourself and in your way even when it is hard and good things will happen.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dreamdelicacies.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreamdelicacies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dream-Delicacies-By-Zohar-Cohen-1922881571359762
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zohar-koren-cohen-43100a5/

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