Helen’s Heavenly: Meet the Pastry Artist Behind Columbus’ Viral Fruit-Shaped Cakes
In this rare interview, the founder of Helen’s Heavenly talks about moving to the U.S. and starting her dessert business.
Meet Helen Peng, the founder of Helen’s Heavenly
By Bethia Woolf
If you’ve scrolled through TikTok in the past year, you may have come across the strikingly lifelike, fruit-shaped pastries that caused lines out the door at Littleton’s Market. But chances are, you don’t know much about the woman making them.
Helen Peng, the founder of Helen’s Heavenly, is from Guangzhou, the fifth-largest city in China, where she had a career in finance. She met her American husband there, who traveled to Guangzhou frequently on business, and she eventually moved to the U.S. with him.
Peng loved cooking as a child and enjoyed spending time in the kitchen, but—as is common in China—she did not grow up with an oven at home. The first time she ever used one was after she met her husband. He had a toaster oven, and she started experimenting, making cheesecake and bread.