Aya's Sweets

She started this at sixteen.

Aya has been baking since she was nine. She opened Aya's Sweets at sixteen.

Her family is Palestinian. The kitchen is on Telegraph Road.

Nights in the ER.

Mornings in the kitchen.

She still works nights as an ER tech. The baking happens in the mornings, which is why nothing here is made in advance. There is no shelf to make it for.

Nights in the ER.
Mornings in the kitchen.

She started this at nine.

Self-taught, off YouTube and Food Network, because she asked her mom if she could use the kitchen and then never really stopped.

Aya Islim at her matcha and coffee cart, wearing an Aya's Sweets shirt
Aya, at the cart

  1. Age nine

    She asked if she could use the kitchen

    Not for a class or a project. She just wanted to see what would happen. Nobody taught her. She worked it out from Food Network and YouTube, one video at a time, and got good enough that her mom stopped being surprised by it.

    Aya at nine, drawn as an animated character, lit from behind by an open oven, apron strings streaming, holding a whisk up in one fist

  2. Age fourteen

    She handed Ice Cube a cake

    At a meet-and-greet, of all places. She had made it herself and brought it along on the chance she'd get close enough. The photos went around, and after that the orders stopped being just for family.

    Aya at fourteen striding out of a crowd, backlit by stage lights, holding a cake out on a board

  3. 2020

    A food truck, to find out what people actually order

    Before signing a lease she spent a year selling out of a truck. It taught her the thing you cannot learn from a recipe: which things people come back for, and which ones only look good in a photograph.

    Her pink dessert food truck at dusk on a wet Detroit street, hatch open and glowing, a short queue waiting
    “Aya's Sweets makes some incredible custom cakes. I tried Aya's Sweets at a food truck she ran and the desserts were unique and very delicious.”
    Joe Beydoun · Google review

  4. June 2021

    The shop on Ford Road

    She opened it at sixteen. The grand opening was on July fourteenth, her seventeenth birthday. Her mother closed her own business to help run it.

    Aya and her mother standing together in the lit doorway of the new shop, a cut ribbon drifting in the air
    “Sweet and nice staff. Got the plain fried Oreos, s'mores cookie melt and cupcakes. All of them 10/10. Cutest mother and daughter duo doing the work in there.”
    Hadir Elmarakby · Google review

  5. Now

    Nights in the ER, mornings in the kitchen

    She works as an ER tech. Then she comes in and makes birthday cakes. If your order takes a little time, that is why, and it is also why it will be made the day you need it rather than pulled off a shelf.

    One image split down the middle: Aya in scrubs under blue emergency light on the left, and in her baking apron under gold morning light on the right
    “We came in with our large family on a busy Ramadan night. Aya and her mom were so nice, so calm running the shop. Everything was delicious.”
    Lacey Massri · Google review

What does she actually make?

Custom cakes first. Then fried Oreos, milkshakes, matcha, coffee and a short food menu. $1 to $11, plus cakes priced per order.

Is she really running this alone?

She bakes in the mornings and works nights as an ER tech. Everything is made to order, which is why none of it exists until you ask.

Custom cakes need 48 hours.

We quote every one on the phone. Everything else on the menu is same day, and all of it is pickup from 5303 S Telegraph Rd.

Call (313) 429-9095See the menu