Bryan and Dawn Koh share the secret recipe driving the success of their homegrown cake companies Chalk Farm and Milk Moons
Siblings Bryan and Dawn Koh come across as polar opposites. The former is serious, soft-spoken and quite unyielding, while the latter is warm, sociable and infectiously cheerful. Bryan has always been academically inclined, while Dawn, who was born dyslexic, is a visual learner.
Their interests are dissimilar, too, with Bryan finding passion in food and Dawn in fashion. Yet despite their differences, the pair has never had a serious argument. “Bryan and I have always been close,” explains Dawn, the younger of the two. “We really understand each another so we hardly fight.” In fact, the duo, who are the co-founders of cake companies Chalk Farm and Milk Moons, bear complementary traits that have helped them take on different leadership roles within their business.
(Related: 11 Beautiful Wedding Cake Ideas)
In 2010, Bryan established Chalk Farm as an online store to “explore my passion, occupy my time and learn how to run a business”. He was only selling two types of cake then: a carrot whisky sultana cake and a dark gingerbread.
Dawn joined him in 2013, taking a gap year after her first year at Le Cordon Bleu London, to help him launch the cake company’s first brick and mortar store in Paragon. Her role: to put her strong interpersonal skills to work and manage the staff, storefront and product quality control.
By this time, Chalk Farm’s selection of desserts had blossomed to include cupcakes, cheesecakes and traditional desserts such as the kueh salat, a two-layered Nyonya delicacy that is now one of its bestsellers. The next year, the pair opened a second store at Parkway Parade, and later Milk Moons in 2017. This expands on Bryan’s fascination with Asian ingredients and flavours.