Maywood resident and Sugar Fixe baker Edgar Ki has loved baking and cakes for as long as he can remember.
“My grandma used to make an orange cake, and I really fell in love with it,” Ki said. “I loved watching her go through the process. It spurred my own dreams of wanting to bake cakes and design them myself.”
And there was something else that struck a chord with Ki and baking.
“The thing that’s really inspirational for me, as a deaf person, is that communication can sometimes be hard because I feel like I can’t connect with the hearing world in the same way that others do,” he said. “But when I’m baking, it’s something that I can just do with my hands, and it doesn’t require communication. I can express myself through my baking, and that’s what I really love about it.”
Ki got his professional start at Oak Park’s Sugar Fixé bakery. He was hired as a dishwasher, but he let his desire to work as a baker be known early on.
“I quickly realized that he is passionate about decorative work,” Sugar Fixé Chef Emma Marvel Petergal said. “He has an artistic eye.”
To reach that goal, Ki also enrolled in Triton College’s Hospitality Industry Administration program. He excelled there too.
“It’s never just the class assignment for him,” department chair Christoper Clem said. “He’s not gonna just settle for anything, he’s always looking for the next element of excellence.”
Then Ki spotted The Greatest Baker contest.
“I saw an advertisement about it on social media and I kept seeing it. It was saying you could win $10,000,” Ki said.
He investigated to make sure it was legit. He also saw that the owner of Carlo’s Bakery, Buddy Valastro was involved.
“When I was a kid, I used to watch TV and videos about cake design and stuff like that. And Valastro is a very well-known person in that field,” Ki said. “I saw that he was a part of it and you’d get to meet him and take a picture with him. I was so excited.”
The online competition involved cooking items that were voted on. His instructors, fellow students and community got behind him.
“I thought he was going to win,” Marvel Petergal. “He has an incredible work ethic and he’s just like kind of the sweetest pride to be around.”
Ki made it to the quarter finals.
“And then I found out that he didn’t share with us that he placed so high, because I think he felt that wasn’t good enough,” Clem said. “I was like, come on, it was against 300 people.”
Even though he didn’t win the cash or meet with cake boss Valastro, Ki is still pursuing his passion. Among other things at Sugar Fixé, he makes the decorated sugar cookies.
“For Christmas, for Halloween, for Valentine’s Day, I’m the one who does the designs,” Ki said. “I like to put funny little designs on them as well. That’s something I really enjoy.”
“I just like let him have the reins,” said Petergal. “Whatever cookies he wants to bake, whatever shapes, whatever designs. He knocks them out of the park every time.”
As for his future, Ki said, “I wanted to travel to France to learn more skills at École Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie and the Asian area to learn my skills. Travel to any country to learn their new desserts, bread, etc. from famous dessert shops all over the world.”