New Hyde Park's Catherine Cheng competes in new Netflix baking competition

New York City is not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of county fairs. But it was at the annual Queens Agricultural Fair at the Queens County Farm where New Hyde Park baker Catherine "Cat" Cheng won the prize that sent her to Netflix’s new "Blue Ribbon Baking Championship," premiering early Friday on the streaming service.

"Two years ago I won a blue ribbon for my apple pie," says the former music teacher, 27, speaking by phone from home. Leaving teaching during the height of the COVD-19 pandemic, "I just randomly started baking and posting things about it on my Instagram account," spinning off into what is now her business account, Cat’s Bakes.

"After a few years of plugging away at it," she says, "feeling like I don't know if anyone's seeing it, a casting agent actually found me on Instagram, sent me a DM [direct message] and invited me to apply for the show."

The competition is hosted by "American Pie" star Jason Biggs and Daytime Emmy Award-winning TV chef and author Sandra Lee, and judged by Lee, baker Bryan Ford and former White House pastry chef Bill Yosses. The show pits 10 award-winning bakers against each other across eight episodes.

In addition to Cheng, who was born in Manhattan and raised in Franklin Square, the competition includes another Long Islander, Larry Kaiser, owner of 1760 Homestead Farm in Riverhead.

"Larry’s the best," says Cheng. On the set, "We would fake bicker a lot, and so the joke we made was, ‘This is why we have to be on opposite sides of the island!’ Tough exterior, but he’s so kind and generous when you get to know him. I can't wait to be able to talk to him again."

She is one of two children, with younger brother Alex, of Taiwanese-immigrant parents James Chang, an IT infrastructure engineer, and Chrissy Chang, a Christian minister and after-school teacher. Cat married software engineer David Z. Cheng in 2019 and moved to New Hyde Park.

"He definitely is the person that I have taste-test everything that I make," she says. "Even if I'm making a buttercream for a cake and I just want a second opinion, he'll be in a Zoom meeting and I'll stick a spoon in front of his face and have him taste it. So that's the nature of our relationship," she says with a laugh.

She attended H. Frank Carey High School in her hometown, and after earning a New York University degree in music education in 2018, taught and was an orchestra director in the Sewanhaka Central High School District. The multi-instrumentalist, including violin and piano, went on to receive a 2021 master’s degree in music education from Queens College.

Today Cat’s Bakes is a going concern. "People will message my Instagram and place an order and I also have a Google form with everything I sell. Normally people will come pick up orders from my home, but in the last couple of years I've been doing a lot of wedding cakes and bigger celebration things that I deliver to the site. I also, I would say equally, do my own content creation. And then in my spare time I walk dogs for money."

She’ll be back at the Queens Agricultural Fair this October. Has she decided on what to bake? "Potentially toasted sesame cookies with chocolate chunks. Ooh, fun!"