LAC LA BICHE - Sprinkles, Oreos, and lots of frosting were involved in a recent FCSS Teen Chillzone cake decorating night, using something sweet to take away the sour some might feel from the COVID pandemic.
Tamam Hattum, the owner of Queen Bean Cafe & Bakery on Main Street in Lac La Biche was the on-site expert for the fun night, providing the supplies and the know-how.
Hattum has been professionally selling her baked goods and decorative cakes for four years, but she’s been baking ever since she was a little girl, helping her parents when they were running their own downtown cafe, Snickerdoodles. Although Snickerdoodles is no longer running, Hattum continues her love of baking, and customer service with her own business — and extra tasks like the hands-on cake decorating. Although it might seem like work on top of work, Hattum sees baking as a way to unwind after a long day.
“For me, baking is really relaxing. I used to come home in the evening after work I would bake cookies or make cupcakes, and it was just something for me to do as a hobby and now I do it full time,” said Hattum.
Before opening up her own bakery, Hattum was an EMT for four years and prior to that she worked at a bank, but something always drew her down a different path. The last diversion was the icing on the cake — literally, as she learned to decorate cakes
“I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to do this, and I never went to school for it, so I just read a lot of books and watched a lot of videos to get to where I am today,” she said.
Hattum’s sharing some of those talents in workshops around the community — including the most recent one at McArthur Place on November 13.
“Honestly, teaching was out of my comfort zone because I’ve never taught anyone before. I was asked if I would be interested, so I decided to give it a try,” said Hattum, seeing it as another path to travel down. “Well one class turned into eight, and now I think we’ve done twelve cake decorating classes. I enjoy teaching, and everyone seems to have a lot of fun decorating their cakes.”
Each of the teens in the class got to bring home their own cake that they decorated themselves. This is the last class Hattum is teaching for the year, but there will be more announced for 2021.
