Treating your blues, one brownie at a time

Brownie Blues, Dubai's homegrown brownie store, is full of handmade, home-style goodness

Now that cupcakes are slowly out the door - it's already happened in the US, but Dubai's playing catch up - it's time to look at other dessert trends to stuff our 32 sweet tooth filled faces and it might just be time for the humble brownie's shot at glory. And pioneering satisfying your brownie blues is a home-grown little outlet called, appropriately, Brownie Blues.
The brainchild of once stay-at-home mum, Arva Abbas Fakhruddin, Brownie Blues in Jumeirah Plaza is a cosy place to truly indulge all your chocolatey cravings. "The reason why people keep coming in is because everything in our store is handmade, from scratch. Even the packaging and the decorations are done by hand," says 43-year-old Arva. "That means our brownies taste like homemade goodness that you can't stop eating."

Arva Abbas Fakhruddin

But Brownie Blues had a more humbler beginning - in Arva's home kitchen. "I've always been making brownies, like when friends came over for dinner or when we had family lunches," she says. "Once my kids started going to school, I started occasionally sending them a couple of brownies packed in their lunchboxes. This was more than 10 years ago, mind you," she adds. Of course, kids being kids, shared their lunch and eventually parents started calling her - "'my son likes your son's brownies. Where do you get them from?' was one of the common questions I got from other parents," says Arva. "So I started packing a few extra for the other kids, but eventually the parents didn't want their kids eating brownies for free. I guess it's a code amongst parents," she laughs.
Soon, Arva was making brownies and packing them in little boxes to send to people who had all sorts of special requests. "I had parents asking me if I could make them with M&M's, marshmallows, nuts, and even to infuse certain flavours. So I started to experiment, making different kinds of brownies and even making little handmade boxes so people could take them as gifts." Arva says she then put up a Facebook page on her quickly growing home business, which she called Chocolate Blues, at first. She starts laughing when she describes some of her first customers being confused at her house. "They would knock on my door asking for the chocolate blues shop and look surprised when I told them they were standing on its steps." She ended up making about 15,000 brownies in a two year period.
Arva's big push, however, came much later, approximately two years ago, when her husband coaxed her into the business. "Being married young, and then having kids, I was really accustomed to being at home. My husband was pretty well settled, so I didn't have to work. I did always have a nagging feeling that I was underutilised though, so this was a great opportunity to learn new skills and gain some business acumen." So Arva relied on her home recipe and her brownies' word-of-mouth status to open her first store in Jumeirah Plaza. "I feel like I've found my groove now and my own little place. We've upped our packaging ten fold and they are truly worthy of being great gift boxes."
Despite all the changes, and the possible franchising agreements Arva's already having to deal with, she is adamant that her store will only make brownies and that those brownies will be handmade. "There's no industrial/commercialised processes in our kitchen. We don't even have big machines. The brownie batter is mixed by hand and baked with love. I feel that if it were all mechanised, it wouldn't be the same." She's also not tempted to diversify into other desserts. "I've had a lot of family and friends trying to sell me on doing other desserts, but I think I'd rather have people love great brownies, than come to the shop to buy cupcakes or cakes that aren't as good."
The hardest part in all of this wasn't getting things started, but sharing the recipe. "Once you start a business like this, you end up giving up something. For me it was sharing my brownie recipe. Obviously, I couldn't do everything myself, but I still go into the kitchen whenever I can. I love cooking and baking. I've always been hands-on in the kitchen and learnt so much from my mum, who was an excellent cook."
Arva is now looking to expand into other GCC countries. "It's funny, because Dubai is all about the brands, and since I'm new, it's hard to get your foot in the door. I've got offers to take Brownie Blues to Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman, Saudi, and even South Africa but that's a whole different challenge and now I'm trying to figure all of that. I'm teaching myself as I go along. It's been difficult, but I love the challenge!"
If brownies really are the next cupcake, Brownie Blues is going to be around for a long time. Until then, it's one of the few places in Dubai that you can get one heck of a brownie fix!
rohit@khaleejtimes.com

• Food and Dining