Maham Qureshi
Shakkar | Houston, TX
September 2025
Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Maham Qureshi started baking when she was just a kid—encouraged by her mom, who cooked often, but never baked. Her older brother first floated the idea of culinary school, and Qureshi followed through, enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio. Though she didn’t complete her final semester due to the pandemic, she landed an externship at Tiny’s Milk & Cookies and later worked at Magnol French Baking, training under pastry pros Christina Villarreal and Rising Stars alum Matthieu Cabon, respectively.
In 2021, Qureshi launched Shakkar out of her home kitchen and eventually moved into Downtown Houston’s POST Market—with the help of her husband, Ali Kureshi—building a devoted following for her halal croissants. Her pastries draw deeply from her Pakistani heritage: The aloo paratha croissant nods to her mom’s potato paratha, and the Hyderabadi tomato chutney kouign-amann to her mother-in-law’s Ramadan recipes. Deft at lamination technique and rich in cultural narrative, her baking is both a personal and political act of resistance against Islamophobia and sexism.
Qureshi’s community engagement extends through fundraising pop-ups for Muslim causes, local collaborations in Sugar Land, and a growing conversation around visibility for Pakistani women in food. She’s passionate about breaking stigmas around culinary careers in her culture and dreams of one day opening a bakery back home in Pakistan. For now, as a new mom and business owner, she’s focused on scaling Shakkar slowly, intentionally, and on her own terms.
