Cake Interview With Just Us Cupcakes

Welcome to Cake Decorator Spotlight Series!

Hi friends! I am thrilled to introduce you to Hajra from Just Us Cupcakes in Denver, Colorado. I am pleased to bring you the July cake decorator and lawyer, showcasing her incredible talent and passion for creating stunning cakes and more. Hajra has become a staple in her local baking community with her exceptional skills and creativity. Read on to get to know a little bit more about her!

Interview with Hajra

It was a pleasure sitting down with Hajra to ask some questions and get to know her a bit better.

Check out with Hajra had to say in our interview:

My love for baking began around the age of 10. I loved to bake as a child and had (still do!) a BIG sweet tooth. Baking with my mom was always my favorite pastime. Later, during college, baking was a way for me to relax during my time off. After finishing law school, I wanted to stay connected to baking while continuing my legal career, so I started my custom cake business, Just Us Cupcakes (“Just Us” being a play on the word “justice”). While I love my legal profession, baking enables me to explore my creative side through bold color palettes, interesting flavor combinations and edible art forms. 

Decorating tips, spatulas, turntables for both cake and cookie decorating, piping bags and a scribe tool for decorating cookies. A good kitchen torch doesn’t hurt either -it’s so versatile. 

When it comes to adding new flavors to my menu, I find a lot of flavor inspiration from traditional Pakistani desserts I grew up with and other desserts and foods made in that region of the world, such as mango lassi. My clients always enjoy creations involving the use of various spices such as cardamom, chili powder, cinnamon and rose water. Decorating inspiration can definitely strike from anywhere! Some of my favorite decor ideas for my clients’ cakes have come from things such as my daughter’s headbands, South Asian formal wear and fabrics and architecture. 

I’d love to try out the velvet texture technique on a cake, as well as making edible fabrics to use in cake decorating. Decorated cookies are also something that I didn’t used to make a lot of in the past, but lately I have been getting lots of requests for. I would really love to perfect my ability to make beautiful royal icing henna designs on cookies freehand!

Being detail-oriented, truly understanding what the client wants from you when they entrust you with an order for their special event, and perhaps most importantly, delivering what you’ve promised. A great plan with sloppy execution doesn’t win over anyone.

Working during the day as an attorney means I have to set hard boundaries with not only how many and what kind of baking orders I take on in a week, but also being able to say “no” to potential clients when I might have important deadlines to meet for my legal clients. Both fields require you to provide exceptional service and results. This means managing time and tasks effectively and efficiently, as well as being confident in your abilities and what you can deliver in a particular period of time. 

I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the biggest names in the baking industry. When I started my baking career – and some would argue even still – there wasn’t a lot of diversity seen in the baking world. Many creations featured by big names in the baking world centered on more “mainstream” celebrations such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and so on. It was very rare to see any bakers who were people of color, or baked goods that celebrated Muslim holidays. When Wilton Brands featured me on their social media channels a couple of years ago, I was really happy that they were taking note of the diversity found among bakers. However, I wanted the bigger brands to actively showcase desserts that highlighted other cultures and religions as well. As I developed a relationship with Wilton, I was able to create various forms of social media content and blog posts for them that focused on the Muslim occasions of Ramadan, Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul-Adha, which in some cases were a first for the company. I was also invited by American Cake Decorating Magazine to create a cake celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha and an accompanying tutorial for their July/August 2022 issue. Seeing my own work published in a magazine I’ve read countless times, admiring other artists’ incredible work, is a surreal but amazing feeling! It’s a nice feeling to know I’ve played a small role in exposing others to beautiful, edible creations that highlight the diversity found amongst bakers and the baking world, in a way that they may never have seen before. 

I was once asked to make a large two-tier square-layered cake inspired by Pakistani lanterns and traditional Pakistani truck art. An interesting combination for sure! The tricky part of this cake was covering it all with fondant panelling, hand painting the same artwork directly onto each fondant side of the cake, and also have the whole cake resemble a traditional lantern. The cake also had intricate gold fondant work all around each edge and side, and on top, a fondant “handle”. Many different elements made this cake a challenge, but planning ahead and taking the time to complete the artwork in stages made it a cake I was very proud of in the end.    

My favorite dessert is always anything made with chocolate, but a slice of chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream between the layers, and covered with chocolate ganache will always be my ultimate favorite dessert. 

When I’m not busy with my legal practice, or decorating cakes, I like making non-cake desserts for my family and friends, such as stuffed cookies and different kinds of bars and brownies. I always say I don’t really like cooking, but I actually love watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks too! I also love watching crime and legal dramas. I always have to catch up every week on every episode of each Law & Order series. I was practically raised on the Law & Order and CSI franchises! 

I’m cross dominant. Lots of people are familiar with the phrase “ambidextrous” but cross dominance, or mixed-handedness is when people change hand preferences between different tasks. For example, I will write and cake-decorate with my right hand, but I only write with my left hand. Plot twist – my husband is cross-dominant too but we will use the opposite hand for the same task as me (he writes only with his right hand, but does other things only with his left). 

Favorite Creations

Ramadan Mubarak Cake

I had the pleasure of collaborating with Wilton to highlight Ramadan, a very special month in the Islamic faith. Wilton sent me all the supplies needed to make this festive vanilla-cardamom cake filled with rose-cardamom whipped cream. This cake is decorated in a night sky theme, paying homage to the sighting of the new moon, marking the start of Ramadan, and the crescent moon and star, symbols of Islam. (For more Ramadan inspiration, click here)

Mehndi Cake

Henna (or “Mehndi” as it often called in South Asian countries), is a special part of the Eid celebration for many women and girls. Henna is often applied the night before Eid, to reveal a beautiful dark stain on the hands the next day!

Aside from Eid, Henna is also traditionally associated with South Asian weddings, with a whole day set aside from the Mehndi party, and this beautiful painted cake was inspired by Pakistani brides. I hand-painted the fondant (credit to the original creator of this image), and used fondant molds and gold paint for the tikka, earrings, and necklace. Other mehndi details done with royal icing.

Rice Paper Sail Cake

Rice paper sails are one of my favorite techniques to use in cake decorating! What rice paper can become when dipped in water and food gel is incredible.

This was a lemon cake filled with cherry pie filling for a special 7th birthday. I wanted more “movement” with the sails and to have it look like flowing scarves in various gem tones all over the cake. Adding a little gold highlighter around the sails makes them so glam!

Bee Themed Cake

Could this cake “bee” any cuter!!?? The cake theme was “Happy 1st Bee-day,” and my client gave me an inspo pic of a cake with some honeycomb, bees, and honey dippers. This was my first time making fake honey, and look how luscious, sticky, and messy-looking it turned out just like real honey!

Green and Gold Eid Cake

American Cake Decorating invited me to create a tutorial for this cake celebrating Eid ul Adha. The full tutorial is in the July/Aug 2022 issue. (For more Eid inspiration, click here)

Lantern Cake

This is one of if not the most ornate and detailed cakes I’ve made! This two tier beauty was inspired by traditional Pakistani lanterns and has hand painted detailing on the bottom inspired by traditional Pakistani truck art. If you’ve seen trucks in Pakistan, you know how vibrant and colorful they are! This tall beauty was made for a first birthday and had one tier of rainbow-chip cake, with another tier of mango lassi flavored cake (filled with mango buttercream).

Pink Floral Cake Pops

Swooning over this “Baby in Bloom” set of cake pops made for a baby shower. Single roses on cake pops are always a traditional, sweet touch, but multiple florals in different designs, pearls, and sprinkles? I think this is my new favorite set! Can’t wait to make another one like this.

Disney Inspired Hijabi Cookies

I chose to make my signature hijabi doll cookies inspired by beautiful artwork I saw on @muslimahscribbler page that involved a re-imagination of Disney princesses by artists, modifying their outfits to include a hijab for the World Hijab Day (February 1st)

Representation matters, in cookies, and in the media! For a lot of us, we grew up with Disney princesses that were fair-skinned and really (aside from a few problematic differences), not really all that different from each other, such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White. Gradually we’ve seen diversity in the Princess role with characters like Jasmine, Mulan and Tiana and others who’ve graced our screens since. It took a while, but we’re finally starting to see characters in animated movies that look like the diverse world around us. It’s important that what we see in the media reflects our society. Muslim women ARE a large part of society and there needs to be a bigger shift in the media to move past the stereotypical portrayal of them as oppressed and other negative implications. I hope we see a hijabi Princess from Disney soon!

Galaxy Set Cookies

Over the moon for this space set! The rockets, the planets, the stars – all bursting with cuteness for this adorable baby shower. I absolutely love how these cookies all came together and even made the daddy to-be a believer in the deliciousness of decorated cookies. Custom cookies are a labor of love and not for the faint of heart, but when they turn out as pretty as these, it’s all worth it!

Two Wild Safari Cookies

These cookies were a hit at a 2nd birthday! It’s hard for me to pick a favorite from this set, but I absolutely love how the animal silhouette and balloon arch cookies turned out.

Thank you, Hajra, for taking the time to do this wonderful interview! Check out below on how to follow Hajra on social media.

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