Carmel Valley resident’s Dream Delicacies offers a DIY approach to baking

Since she was a 16-year-old in her parents’ kitchen in Israel, Zohar Cohen has been selling her own baked goods.

“It was the most profitable business ever, because they bought all the ingredients and I made all the profits,” said Cohen, who later followed her dream and went to school to become a professional pastry chef and now lives in Carmel Valley.

Dream Delicacies is meant to help make baking accessible to anyone.

(Courtesy)

In 2017, the year after she relocated to the U.S. with her husband and their three daughters, she opened Dream Delicacies, which offers recipes, a subscription-based baking club, classes, workshops for adults and kids, birthday parties and more.

After arriving in North County, Cohen said she first had to get acclimated to American culture.

“You have a completely different everything than I know,” she said. “The people, the culture, the desserts you eat here compared to Israel. I had to learn.”

She added that American hobbyist bakers prioritize “having more fun,” and “it’s more about the experience for them.”

She said that Dream Delicacies is meant to help make baking accessible to anyone.

“I believe everything should be super simple and beautiful and impressive,” Cohen said. “Everyone can do it, you don’t need a professional background to make impressive desserts.”

She also imparts her own techniques, which include “how to use less sugar,” a departure from typical American desserts, but “it’s still going to taste great.”

“I really love the idea that I can make baking accessible to everyone, at any level with great tips and recipes that at the end I can see happy faces and feelings of success,” Cohen said.

For more information, visit dreamdelicacies.com.