By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
From being a stay-at-home mom and self-taught baker, to competing on a baking show on the Food Network, Janet Tan, owner of Fairyland Pastry, is living the sweet life.
Tan moved to Seattle in 2013 with her husband and two daughters from Malaysia.
She used to work in hospitality when she lived in Malaysia and was a stay-at-home mom for most of her time since moving to Seattle. Prior to the COVID pandemic, Tan worked at an airline company as ground staff.
She was forced to stay at home again and she needed to find something to do for herself. She watched a lot of cookie decorating videos on YouTube for fun. It piqued her interest and she told her husband that she wanted to try it.
Tan didn’t know how to bake at all and had never been to pastry school. She didn’t even know how to operate the oven because she was so used to reading Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, but her husband, who was the one who went to culinary school, taught her.
Her husband repeatedly asked her, “Are you serious? Are you sure you want to do this?” She told him yes, and so she bought all the things she needed for baking cookies, and the rest is history.
The start of Fairyland Pastry
Tan started her cookie business, Fairyland Pastry, in December of 2020. She has been baking for about a decade. It all started when her oldest daughter was in kindergarten. They were getting invited to birthday parties every month and instead of buying gifts for her daughter’s friends, she wanted to make something special. She would ask the kids’ moms what their favorite characters were and she made custom cookies.
“If you buy a gift, they might not remember you, and even now, I still have moms who still talk about how I made their kid cookies. I think that’s kept me going, from a hobby into a business,” she said.
Her cookie business landed her an opportunity to compete on the Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge.
Janet Tan on Christmas Cookie Challenge, Season 8. (Credit: Food Network)
Christmas Cookie Challenge
Tan had watched the show for several years and thought it looked fun. She saw an advertisement to be cast on the show and she reached out. Her family and friends encouraged her to try out, but she was worried about English not being her first language and was nervous about having to speak on TV.
Turns out the show’s producers intended on reaching out to Janet anyway. After three months of interviewing, she was selected to compete, and filming began in April.
Filming took three days that consisted of a day of interviewing, a day of the competition, and then an additional day of interviewing.
Each episode features four bakers to compete for the grand prize of $10,000 and the Golden Ornament. They tell the bakers the secret ingredients on the spot so they have no clue what to expect. They also only have 90 minutes to make four cookies. The competition is judged by Eddie Jackson and Ree Drummond.
Tan’s episode theme was Santa’s Seaside Holiday. According to the Food Network episode overview, the cookie makers build 3D Christmas sandcastles, compete with crushed cookie sand, and have to use tropical fruit flavors into their cookies to try and win the competition.
Contestant Janet Tan, baking process, as seen on Christmas Cookie Challenge, Season 8. (Credit: Food Network)
When Tan learned about the theme, she was excited because it reminded her of the beaches back in her hometown, Sabah.
Tan shared that the experience was really, really fun. It was very intense because of the challenges and you don’t know what’s coming next.
“I learned that I can make cookies in less than 90 minutes,” Tan laughed.
When they told her that, she thought they must’ve been kidding because though she’s never timed herself, it had taken her two days to finish two dozen cookies before.
“How am I going to finish in such a short amount of time? To mix dough, to bake, to mix the icing, colors and decorate… they pushed me to the limit where I thought I was going to crash, but it turns out I can do it, and I just needed someone to push me to go faster,” she said.
She said that her kids trained her well for this competition. As a mom, she constantly has to manage changing demands and needs.
“It was really challenging and scary, but it’s a good scary,” she said.
Tan took some art classes in high school, but she never considered herself an artsy person. But she learned about mixing colors when she started making cookies. She also talks with her customers to better understand their vision and inspiration to help find the right customized cookie designs.
Tan always looks forward to baking cookies for Christmas and Lunar New Year.
She always tries to match the different holiday trends in her cookies. Like sometimes, there might be a hint of gold or even pink like in her Christmas cookie set this year.
For Lunar New Year, she’s made the lion dragon cookie before.
“When I make that one, it makes me miss home more, but at the same time, I want to bring this to my kids and show them about the lion dances and traditions of how we celebrate Lunar New Year,” she added.
Tan said she would definitely do it again if she had another opportunity to compete.
Her goal is to showcase more of her baking and art. She hopes more people can try her cookies and that she can broaden her reach to other places.
“From seeing my mom do her application, to getting into this baking challenge, to her getting into this is so incredibly amazing! I’m so, so proud of my mom, she came so far from learning how to ice and bake cookies to now selling them in huge batches to companies like Microsoft and Amazon! I’m so excited to brag to my friends, ’That’s my mom on TV!’” Allyson Tang shared about her mom’s success.
Many of her customers order locally and ship nationally to their families.
“I never thought this would turn into a business. I’m not a baker and I’m self-taught. When me and my husband talk about my cookie business, I still laugh because who would’ve thought?” Tan said.
She went from baking cookies for her daughters’ friends’ birthday parties to competing in a Christmas cookie competition on national television.
“It takes so much time to decorate one cookie, but it makes me so happy when customers see the cookie and it was more than what they expected or imagined. That’s the best feeling ever,” Tan said.
Watch Tan’s episode on the Food Network to see how she did on Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. PST on the Food Network.
For more information, visit Fairyland Pastry on Instagram.
Nina can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.
Christmas Cookie Challenge IG post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCpUWvPMriN/?hl=en