Mattin Anang has a job that every Aussie kid dreams of, but every day he walks a fine line

Mattin Anang has a career that many would consider to be a dream job.

As the product development innovator for The Cheesecake Shop, his role is essentially to come up with new dessert ideas through trial and error, a process that obviously involves plenty of taste testing.

But he tells nine.com.au that when he first started as a chef, going into desserts was never his plan.

"When I first started, I thought desserts and pastry were for girls. You know, being a teenager, 19 or 20 years old, I wanted meats – to be a chef like that," he laughs.

But during his apprenticeship at a fine dining, three-hat restaurant, he quickly fell in love with the patisserie world.

"I think the amount of detail and skill involved and the challenges involved were next level," he recalls.

"So that made me fall in love, and from there I just branched out to different aspects of working with pastry or desserts."

When he was young, Anang never thought this would one day be his job.

His career has seen him working under some of the top patisserie chefs in the world, creating bakery treats, serving the masses at Aussie casinos, and even doing corporate catering.

But it's what he does today at The Cheesecake Shop that may be his biggest challenge and achievement yet.

While Anang is a trained pastry chef, he now works in franchising, which means the desserts he creates not only need to be recreated by bakers and decorators at a lower skill level, but they also need to be able to be mass-produced in stores all around the country.

"It is tricky because everything is baked in-store ... We have great decorators and bakers, but they only know so much," he says.

He has to walk a fine line between innovation and practicality.

"It's a fine line. We can have a great product from a test kitchen, but for the stores to create that consistently across 250 stores across Australia and New Zealand, it's not going to work, unfortunately. That's where the dreams come to die."

To aid in the process, he explains the concept of 'guru stores', a select few franchises that trial new products and provide Anang with feedback on his creations, and also provide ideas of their own.

"Everyone's an expert because they own their store. They always tell me, 'Oh, we should do something like this,' or 'This should be done this way'," he explains.

"For example, the rainbow cake, which is the number two selling cake in our network, was actually originally from a franchisee."

He works alongside franchise owners to come up with desserts that customers will love.

However, most ideas come from Anang himself, sharing that he finds inspiration from everywhere, whether it be TikTok, a local bakery, fine dining restaurants, or even fun weekend outings with his kids.

"I go with the kids on what we call a food safari or dessert safari, where we go to cafes and patisseries," he explains.

"All my kids are foodies; they love food. So we taste things and get thinking."

He says his favourite creation so far is the red velvet lamington, but by far the most popular is the cheesecake sticks released in stores in 2025, which Anang describes as the perfect example of the careful line he walks between creating new products and honouring the nostalgia associated with The Cheesecake Shop.

He's the mind behind the TikTok viral cheesecake sticks from 2025.

"My thinking was how we can use something that we already make that people love, but add a twist to it to make it next level," he says.

And while his hope is always to go viral for a product, he never expected the social media frenzy that the cheesecake sticks created.

"One of the ingredients had to come from Italy. We had to air freight stuff in quickly because we sold out," he laughs.

"Our warehouse sold out so quick of this ingredient that it had to come from Italy. It was crazy. I think we sold 30,000, something crazy, in the first week.

"We do forecast, but to that extent? No. They were huge."

While some might tire of desserts all day, Anang says he never gets sick of the sweets.

Some may think that tasting desserts day in and out would eventually get tiresome, but Anang assures that he "never" gets sick of the perks of the job.

"You're not tasting the same thing every day; you're tasting something new and exciting and always trying to think, 'How can I improve this?' Or 'How can I make this better?' It's a challenge as well," he explains.

"I don't get sick of it. It's always fun. Who doesn't want sugar?"

Produced in partnership with CareerOne.