Hello! My name is Zhuo Guan. I am also known as Guan or Bakertan. I am one of the two bakers behind Humble Bakery.
It was the year 2008 when I first played around with flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Little did I know that this initial encounter would make such a deep impact on me. It was love-at-first-sight and I fell in love with baking.
A blackforest cake I made way back in 2011
I was happily doing home-baking for a couple of years. I blogged as well, on blogspot. That was during a time when wordpress and blogspot were popular, before Instagram came along. Gradually, baking gave way to a busy and stressful work schedule. It wasn't until many years later in 2018 that I decided that I needed to get back to baking.
After some deep thoughts, I told myself I needed a proper environment where I could just focus and immerse myself in baking. So I took a leap of faith and bade farewell to my teaching career. Signed myself up for a full-time pastry diploma at At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy and quickly found myself in a whole new world of wonders.
(Me on the left, with my classmate) First day of pastry school at At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy
The transition from education to pastry is not the easiest choice to make. In pastry (F&B), the starting salary is low. So a pay-cut is the first concern. The hours are long and it is commonly 6-day work week. Sometimes, there might not be a fixed rest day and the entitled annual leave can be quite pitiful.
I never regretted going down this path. I knew exactly what I had signed up for. I just had to experience for myself and see where my place would be in this baking industry. Initially, I had a number of goals that I wanted to achieve. For instance, I wanted to work with chocolates. I wanted to learn more on bread making and viennoiseries. I wanted to be a R&D chef.
However, after completing my diploma and working in a few pastry kitchens, I felt that I needed my own personal space and environment to grow. A place where I could make decisions and put my ideas and creativity to work. That was when I decided, it would be good to focus all my attention and energy on my passion project.- Humble Bakery.