Baker Cat Cheng of Cat’s Bakes on Discovering a Her New Talent and Chasing the Blue Ribbon
Cat Cheng became a music teacher straight out of college, but found herself struggling to continue down that path despite devoting much of her life to the craft. When COVID hit, she, like many, took to baking as a hobby and a distraction. But her skills quickly flourished and she saw the potential for baking to become a small business. Within a few short years, she launched Cat’s Bakes, a home baking business, and made her TV debut this year as the youngest contestant on Netflix’s new baking show, “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship.” At age 27, Cheng has undergone a career reinvention, overcoming the “feeling dumb” part of the journey and embracing newfound creativity and potential for future collaborations.
The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Tiffany: Cat, it’s been a big year for you! Are you still teaching music or did you transition fully to Cat’s Bakes?
Cat: I quit teaching after my second year. A big part of that was my husband telling me, “Hey, I know you probably can’t see it but I’m watching how much teaching is taking a toll on you.” I have narcolepsy, which I was only diagnosed with a few years ago and so when I started teaching, it got worse. I didn’t know what was going on and it was a culmination of a lot of things.
T: Has this home baking business allowed you more flexibility to manage your health and do some self-care?
C: Yeah, totally. Even just the freedom to take a five to ten-minute nap if I have what I call a sleep attack. That’s super helpful and that will sustain me for the next couple hours. You can’t do that as a teacher. Working when I have the energy, whether that’s really early in the morning or late at night, I have way more wiggle room now.
T: Are there any crossovers that you can take from your experience as a musician into baking?
C: I think yes, music has been such a big part of my life but I’m realizing over time that the main throughline is my love of people and connection. That’s why I became a music teacher and not a performer. What I love most about running my own bakery is that my baked goods are part of people’s special occasions. Just knowing that this person has ordered my Nutella cake the last three years for her birthday, that’s really special to me.
I think that’s been the theme of my life is to ask how can I connect to people through whatever vessel I choose. For most of my life, that was music and now I’m realizing I’ve actually also loved food my whole life.
T: Was there a sense when you left the music industry for an entirely different field of feeling like you’re leaving behind some part of your identity?
C: A hundred percent. I felt like music was the only thing I was good at, which now I know is not true, but I could only see myself doing that. No matter how many people told me I had different talents, part of me was thinking, “What will my parents think? What if I also invested years, time and energy, into baking and that also doesn’t work out? Am I just somebody who can’t decide what she wants? What are people going to say about me? Am I being a good wife and partner or am I just wasting my husband’s money trying to turn this hobby into something while he supports us financially?”
There was so much imposter syndrome, but what was helpful too was talking to a lot of my teacher friends and they’re all still in the profession. At the time, they had said, “Teaching is so hard right now that if I had an out, I would go.” That really gave me the freedom to do this. Also, my husband saying, “I don’t want you to worry about finances. This is not sustainable for you. I just need you to find what makes you happy.” That was really freeing.
T: So what do your parents think now?
C: The first couple years of me not teaching they would still ask, “Are you interviewing?” Because I had student loans. I think there was this question, “Are you going to go back to a real job with insurance?” Thankfully in the last two years, I’ve shown them that I can support myself with this and people love what I make. It’s really meaningful to me now. Especially with the show coming out, they’re over the moon. I feel like we’re finally all at a place where we can say, “Okay, baking is working right?”
T: What was it like telling them you’re going to be on TV?
C: I actually didn’t tell my parents about making the show. I don’t know why, but I had this idea that I was going to keep it a surprise from them. When I went to film it last year, I said, I’m going to be away for three weeks. It’s for work. Do not ask me any more questions.
When the show aired, I had a watch party at my church and my parents came. They were so excited. It was really sweet. We had it playing on a projector the first time and they both had their phones out filming the clips I was in. I was like, “It’s on Netflix! You can go back and watch it!”
So every episode, my Dad filmed on his phone all the clips that I was in and he would send a short synopsis in Chinese to my family in Taiwan. Just yesterday, I had a really beautiful conversation with him where he told me he was proud and said that it hit him that I’m good and he doesn’t have to worry about me anymore.
T: Did your health struggles present any challenges for you while filming the show?
C: Yes. There was a huge questionnaire I had to fill out and I disclosed to them that I have narcolepsy. I take medication for it to keep me awake. Something really special about our show is that all the contestants got along and we could not stop talking to each other. There were times when I would say, “Guys I just need to put my head down and it doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to you. I just need five minutes to fall asleep for a sec and then I’ll be okay for the next few hours.”
There’s one episode, episode four, that was a consecutive five-hour-long bake, and that was hard for me. I think everyone on the crew was so sweet. They were constantly offering me chairs and saying, “If you need to stop, your health is the most important. We’ll stop whenever you need to stop.” It was so much more supportive than I imagined a TV set could be.
T: Did you come out of the show with lasting relationships with the rest of the contestants?
C: Yeah, it’s been so awesome. We filmed this last year and we were not allowed to contact each other until the show came out. It’s only been a month of us getting to talk to each other again. Naturally, we have a million different group chats. I think we’re all very excited about finally being able to talk and see each other in the next year.
I was the youngest in the cast. I, by far, have the least amount of experience out of everyone in the class because when we filmed, I had only been baking for maybe four years. Everyone else was maybe, ten-plus years. I came in with a lot of imposter syndrome but everyone was so kind. There was a moment in the show when I was struggling and another contestant came to help me. I felt that I could never ask a stupid question around them, like asking them how they would stabilize whip cream or insert the dowel. But everyone was so happy to help, so that was really special.
T: Do you think this experience leveled up your baking or inspired any changes to your offerings?
C: For starters, since the show dropped, I’ve been getting so many more orders. But to tie the menu back to being Taiwanese American, 95 percent of my menu was very Western offerings. It wasn’t until maybe a year or two ago, another Asian American asked if I would do anything for Lunar New Year. I thought that would be a good idea.
Since I was able to present some Asian flavors on the show and those bakes were the ones people connected with the most, I am in the process of adding those to my menu in the next couple of weeks. Prior to the show coming out, I didn’t conceive of having those flavors on my menu. It just never really occurred to me. Now, I’m seeing that people love it as much as I do.
T: Did you grow up enjoying a lot of Taiwanese or Asian food and pastries?
C: Yes. My Mom cooked dinner every single night, and it was always Taiwanese food. I mention it in the show, but every Saturday we would do music lessons in Queens. So my parents would go to the Hong Kong Supermarket and grocery shop. We would go to the Asian bakeries around there and I’d be excited to eat those baked goods for breakfast throughout the week. I did always grow up with Taiwanese and Asian food in general but I wasn’t proud of it until maybe five or six years ago.
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- Cat Cheng (Photograph credit: Hea Wang)
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- Cat Cheng (Photograph credit: Hea Wang)
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- Cat Cheng (Photograph credit: Hea Wang)
T: Yeah. I feel this as someone in the food industry. I was trained on Western cuisine and it took me a while to ask myself why I was not doing this and applying my skills to the Asian flavors and dishes I grew up eating.
C: Yeah! My goal with my newer menu items is to not replicate what I had growing up. For example, one of the things I made on the show was a challenge where we had to make sweet rolls. I was like, uh, I don’t know. I don’t make sweet rolls. I don’t even know how I came up with the idea but I thought, what if I turned a bolo bao into a sweet roll? So I took the coconut filling and placed it as the cinnamon roll filling. I made the bolo bao craquelin and placed it on top.
I want to put a fun new spin on flavors that I grew up with and desserts I’m familiar with. I hope that will be exciting for people to try. I’m so excited that this opportunity of being on TV has connected me to so many people, especially Asian and Taiwanese Americans. I’m looking to connect. I’m looking to collaborate with other Taiwanese Americans.
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