Rise and shine — heartland baker tops global contest

When Ms Joanne Huang picked up baking over a decade ago, she did not expect it to become her life’s work.

- Hedy Khoo Senior Correspondent

What began as an act of love to ease her baker husband’s workload ended up taking her to the global stage.In July, the 44-year-old received the World Confectioner of the Year 2025 award at the International Union of Bakers and Confectioners Awards in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Although she sees herself as still a rookie in the industry, she is the first Southeast Asian woman and first Singaporean to earn the title.

Back in 2014, she learnt how to bake to help out her husband, Mr Forest Lim, 49. She watched him wake up five days a week at 2am to make curry puffs, doughnuts and egg tarts before delivering them to seven school canteens. Pregnant with their second child then, she could only help with packing and accompanying him on his delivery runs.

The couple and their eldest son, then two years old, lived in an HDB flat above Mr Lim’s family bakery — founded in 1979 as New Generation Confectionery in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1while waiting for their own flat to be ready.

Born in Taiwan, Ms Huang moved to Singapore in early 2012, after a whirlwind one-month romance with Mr Lim, whom she met while working here as a dance instructor in November 2011. She married him in May the following year and became a stay-at-home mother here.

“It pained me to see my husband working so hard and I wanted to find some way to help him,” she recalls. Up till then, Ms Huang, who has a certificate of study in applied foreign languages from the Overseas Chinese University in Taichung City, had worked only as a dance teacher.

With no baking experience, she suggested creating an online platform specialising in customised cakes for special occasions, which were then becoming popular. Mr Lim handled production while she managed their Facebook marketing and orders.

“Right there and then, I knew I wanted to learn cake-making first to ease his burden,” she says.

SECRET PLAN