Creating Desi Cheesecakes for the Culture
Rifath Ahmed’s father Shahin Ahmed moved from Bangladesh to Michigan in 1980 when he was 16 years old. During that time he lived with a cousin in Detroit. He took drafting classes at Cass Tech High School and worked to provide for his family in his home country. He later went back to Bangladesh, got married, and moved to Hamtramck, Mich. with his family in 1987. He also opened the Bangladeshi grocery store Bengal Spices with his brother Shamim Ahmed.
Rifath says she grew up in a joint family among other Bangladeshis.
“Like every childhood memory, adolescent memory that has to do with family is always tied in Hamtramck, Michigan,” she says.
Identity played a huge role in how she saw herself. At 11-years-old she moved to Sterling Heights, going from a city with many Bangladeshis to one where she was the only Bangladeshi in her school.
“It was a huge culture shock,” she says.
Over the years Rifath reconnected with Bangladeshis until she moved to Houston in 2016, where she was either the only Bangladeshi or Bangladeshi from Sylhet, a city in northeast Bangladeshi, in the room.
Now Rifath launched Sweets & Saffron in Houston in October 2020 via Instagram to celebrate the best of both her worlds to create fusion desserts, borrowing from Bangladeshi flavored sweets (Bangladeshis are known for their sweets) and adding them to American desserts like cheesecakes, doughnuts, or mousse.
Rifath debuted her sweets at her friend’s Halloween masquerade ball. She made ladoos, round yellowish-orange sweets made of flour, sugar and fat, that looked like truffles shaped like pumpkins, earning her the nickname Dr. Frankenstein for her invention.
In college, Rifath served as the treasurer for the student organization Wayne State University’s Bangladeshi Students’ Association in 2008-2009 in Detroit.
During one of the student organization fairs, she remembers serving Bangladeshi snacks such as fyaazis, lentil fritters, chana biran, fried chickpeas, and zulafis, a sweet made with a fried batter that’s soaked in simple syrup. She noticed people were hesitant to try the Bangladeshi sweets, often saying they were unfamiliar or too sweet.
This led her to think about ways to introduce Bangladeshi foods to non-Bangladeshis. She found herself taking desi-inspired desserts to functions where she was often the only Bangladeshi in the room. For example, she added kulfi, South Asian ice cream in flavors like pistachio, to cheesecake.
“Maybe if I fuse it with something because some people don’t want to reach for something foreign to them,” she says.
She says the concept was a hit, and she loves cheesecake.
On the other side, she noticed desi kids reached for American desserts at dinner parties more than Bangladeshi sweets.
“They wanted cupcakes, brownies, or ice cream. So I was like okay well how about if I keep fusing these things into cheesecake,” she says.
She says creating desi-flavored desserts helps her contribute and hold onto her culture.
“I’m really happy to see that all these people claiming their cultures and putting it into art and dance and acting on Instagram. It’s very inspiring,” she says.
She adds, and then she would have cravings.
“Where can I find gulab jamun (a South Asian sweet) doughnuts? I guess I can make it!” she says.
Her business Sweets & Saffron is symbolic of who she is.
“When you grow up in America, no matter what you’ll always have this Bengali identity. You fuse yourself into the American but then realize that you can have both identities,” she says.
Mango Lassi Mousse
Courtesy of Rifath Ahmed
Rifath Ahmed shared this recipe of Mango Lassi Mousse, a tribute to her father’s mango lassis that he would make for Rifath and her brother as kids.