Ukrainian cake-maker adapts to Irish tastes in Kinvara

Svetlana Verba baked a cake shortly after she arrived in Ireland after fleeing Ukraine as a thank you to her Irish hosts for offering sanctuary. Soon she may have a business.

Verba, who worked in sales at Bosch and Siemens in Kharkiv before the invasion, prepared her cake for the family in Kinvara, Co Galway, who provided sanctuary for her and her child: Fiona Graham, her partner Seán Meehan and their daughter Sheena.

“It looked professional to me,” says Graham, who began considering opportunities that might exist for Verba with the local farmers’ market.

Then she thought of a Facebook post, which quickly gathered 900 shares. Within a day the Ukrainian had received 12 orders and 20 have come in to date.

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In addition to Verba and her child, the Kinvara family offered accommodation to her friend Irina Martynevska and her child also.

“I always like baking and . . . my friends and my family love my cakes. They say always they’re very nice and very tasty. This is why I think, ‘why not?’ I need to try. I like this new little job,” says Verba. Although she admits to missing several ingredients from home.

“We have citric acid, I always need citric powder, now I try buy, never I find. And I need some starch, potato starch, but now I don’t find, maybe I need to order on mail. But some products I cannot find,” she says.

In addition, it appears the Irish have more limited preferences.

“Irish people really like chocolate sponge, chocolate cakes. But in Ukraine some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla sponge, many different recipes and different cakes.

“When I ask, ‘maybe you want some chocolate, but a little different?’ People say, ‘I don’t know’. In Ireland, chocolate is the most popular, I listen. And every time it’s ‘chocolate cake, I want chocolate cake, only chocolate cake!’ ”

Although relieved to be safe in Kinvara, her happiness is tainted by the war in Ukraine as her husband, mother, brothers and their families remain there.

“Now I have more strength and energy and something to do . . . but now we are not happy that relatives are not with us. And all the time we are very worried,” she says.

“But I am very glad to God for sending us Fiona and Seán and we thank them every time, because these times are very difficult for us,” she says. “Now we try to live; and we have a new life again.”