Apple pure, a little bit of sugar, water, and love: these are the ingredients with which 14-year-old Katrina Tatosyan crafts her famous marshmallows and sweet bunches that enjoy strong demand online.
Katrina inherited love for cooking from her mom. She can’t recall how old she was when she first entered the kitchen and started cooking. At age 6, with her sister who is just 2 years older than her, they decided to do a cooking blog where children would present various dishes. Katrina confesses that, as young as she was at the time, she was already thinking of earning money by doing what she likes.
“At the time, we still didn’t know that one could not make money from social media views in Armenia. After some time, my sister started to get bored and abandoned the idea of a shared blog. I shot YouTube videos until I was about 9 or 10, but then, I got tired of it, too,” Katrina recalls.
Katrina got tired of the social media, but not of cooking: different types of pastas, meat dishes, sweets… Katrina cooks everything depending on her mood and the family’s preferences.
“My taste changes with age—I start disliking certain meals that I enjoyed before. My cooking process changes with age, too: for instance, I now try to prevent mom from interfering with the cooking process, because it’s important for me to do the whole process on my own, to make mistakes, to learn from my mistakes. I think no knowledge can replace personal experience, which one gains from failing, trying, and succeeding,” the young chef says.
Katrina’s ‘affair’ with marshmallows began in 2020, during the COVID pandemic. Locked at home, spending most of the day in social media, Katrina suddenly noticed an ad about a cooking class for marshmallows. She decided to try, although she had never made marshmallows before, and didn’t even like their taste.
“Marshmallow is actually one of the few sweets that I disliked, because I had tasted it several times, and did not like it. After the class, I tried to make some. It wasn’t bad for the first time. Moreover, I tasted what I had made, and this time, I liked it. Then I decided to improve my skills, because I care to do what I do flawlessly, at least for me. This aspiration for perfection is in everything. Of course, it sometimes gets in the way, but this is how I am: whatever I do, I need to do well,” says Katrina.
In the mind of the 11-year-old, this aspiration for perfection started to grow into a business plan. She confesses that her parents were immediately supportive of her, and did not stop her from pursuing her dream.
After a short while, with the help of her aunt and uncle, Katrin implemented her idea selling marshmallows online: she personally created the Little Sweet Chef brand logo, and started to study the key principles of business promotion. However, the first order did not come straight away. She would first make marshmallows for friends that had already tried the sweets made by Katrina. It took months to get the first order from a stranger.
“Even though I had made marshmallows for 100s of times already, I was extremely anxious when I got my first order. It felt like a touchstone for the future of my business idea. I even delivered it myself. That day, I made very little money—just 5,000 drams, which was the only money I spent on myself,” Katrina recalls.
She saves the money generated from other orders for her bigger dreams. She knows for sure that if she works hard and spares no effort, she will have her café in Yerevan in 5 years, where deserts made by her will be served. After 10 years, she says, she will conquer Paris, too.
“I very clearly see the date on which my café will be opened. I will wake up each day, at 5.30am, I will walk down the spiral staircase of a tall building, I will pass through the still-not-crowded streets of the city, I will unlock my café, sit at the entrance, enjoy my morning coffee, and start working in the kitchen, to make sure everything is ready when the first client walks in,” says Katrina.
She’s not afraid of waking up early, working, or getting tired. She knows from experience that only hard work produces results.
She’s also not afraid of experiments: today, she’s making cherry, raspberry, strawberry, vanilla, orange, lemon, black mulberry, and apricot marshmallows, and marshmallow bunches shaped like tulips. She makes only organic marshmallows, and recently, also vegan marshmallows.
Katrina usually listens to music when making sweets. She is certain that her emotions pass on to the people that eat sweets made by her. Hence, she tries to send only warmth and joy to people.
The young chef is super-busy today. Katrina was admitted to the Confectionary Department of the French-Armenian College, and in parallel, she’s attending business trainings. And this is only the beginning.
“My future goal is to study at Le Cordon Bleu international cooking art school in France. Many say that career orientation at such a young age is perhaps wrong, because I fail to consider other professions, but it’s all clear to me: at some age, I dreamt of becoming a doctor, then marketing, and so on, but I understood that cooking is where I will discover my journey. Age does not matter, if you know your journey and see your goal. Besides, it is never too late for gaining new professions.”
Every time someone recognizes her in the street, Katrina gets very emotional: ‘the Marshmallow Girl’—this is what people call her. She really does not object…