Prodigies
On the Rise Fort Myers fifth-grader Riya Shah may dream of becoming an aerospace engineer, but in the meantime, she stands out as a champion baker. Words: Hampton Williams Hofer Photographs: Anna Nguyen
who whips up lemon-jalapeño tarts and mango cheesecakes in her Fort Myers kitchen—and a contestant on the most recent season of the Food Network’s Kids Baking Championship. “Watching her as a baby, we never thought she would actually turn into a baker, but retrospectively we see she was always thinking about it,” Riya’s mother, Roshani Shah, says.
The 11-year-old baker recently landed a spot on Food Network ’s Kids Baking Championship.
When Riya Shah was only a year
Riya is a busy fifth-grader: a lover
old, she molded Play-Doh into
of art, math and music—namely the
cakes, patting down pretend frosting
flute, piano and violin, which she
decorations with her little hands. A
plays with the Southwest Florida
decade later, she is a baking prodigy
Symphony Youth Orchestra. She also recently won her school spelling bee. When the pandemic gave her more time at home, she started watching baking tutorials on YouTube. “From there, there was no stopping her. She just took off,” Roshani says. The young baker taps into her creative side with artfully decorated desserts like s’mores cookie bars, chaat masala popcorn and a chocolate Oreo cake with a reverse drip. Many of the treats featured on her Instagram look almost too good to eat. One of her showstoppers is a chocolate cake with ombre pink frosting and chocolate ganache drip, adorned with Swiss meringue buttercream flowers and gold accents. “I love baking,” Riya says, “because I love art and food.”
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