(Just a warning, this is a really sweet and inspirational story, but also a really sad one.)

In the spring of 2021, 13-year-old Malia Jusczyk won The Greatest Baker Competition against thousands of home and professional bakers of all ages! The prize? $20,000 plus a year’s supply of Stuffed Puffs®! Malia’s love of baking started by helping her family in the kitchen and soon grew into her passion (especially making chocolate cake pops). She focused on high quality ingredients and baked everything fresh and from scratch. Malia started her own bakery, Malia’s Sweet Treats, where she sold her baked goods online. Additionally, during the Covid-19 quarantine, she began teaching classes on Zoom, where she taught and inspired others to bake. Winning the title of the Greatest Baker wasn’t enough for her, and she hoped to compete in TV baking competitions, such as the Kids Baking Championship. Malia was dedicated to learning and improving, and she spent hours each day baking in the kitchen.

However, starting a business was not the only challenge Malia faced. She also battled cancer, yet she would not let this stop her from baking and inspiring other kids. Her advice to young bakers was to “never give up on what you love, not only in cooking, but also in life.” She was sweet and determined, but sadly passed away after a relapse of cancer in 2023. Since then, her family has continued her business, featuring recipes that she had created and donating the profits to support cancer research and treatment.

Malia’s story can encourage everyone to not give up and press on even when facing battles. She treated her customers with love, wanting to inspire them and not just focusing on making a profit. Hard work and determination can achieve great things, as Malia demonstrated when she won the title of Greatest Baker in 2021.

Read more about Malia’s story at: https://greatestbaker.com/media/pdf/GBS-MagFeature2021-FINAL.pdf