Several years ago, Estelle Sohne ’04LAW, a former litigation associate and full-time mother of three, was looking for her next career move when she had a eureka moment at the grocery store. “I walked down an aisle where one side had international olive oils and the other had traditional American baking mixes,” she recalls. “So I decided to bridge the two sides.”
In 2022, Sohne founded Flour & Olive, a line of cake mix designed for baking with olive oil. “Olive-oil cakes tend to be moist and soft, and they can be made dairy-free or vegan,” says Sohne. The mix has been a hit with foodies. This past spring, the brand, based in Kirkland, Washington, was honored with a sofi gold award from the Specialty Food Association.
Sohne says that like wine, “olive oil has terroir. It can be fruity, nutty, peppery, or buttery” and offers an excellent “canvas” for different flavors. Flour & Olive offers four varieties — chocolate, vanilla, almond, and ginger — and its website includes over seventy international cake recipes to use with the mix, for everything from Italian tortas to Algerian mouskoutchous.
The company’s global character is inspired by Sohne’s multicultural family: her husband, Yannick Carapito ’03LAW, is French, and she grew up in a mixed-race household in Accra, Ghana. “Our logo is based on the Ghanaian symbol for welcome,” she says. “It’s made up of connected olives and olive-flower blossoms — a celebration of cultural diversity and an embrace of our shared humanity.”
Enter online promo code COLUMBIA15 for a discount.
