Markets: Malaysia – The Joy of Artisanal Cakes
Business is sweet for specialty bakers in Kuala Lumpur who bend over backwards to deliver fine confectioneries.
It’s a bit of a mystery how the obsession with artisanal bakers and their wares have taken hold of the city. Artisanal bakers are a liberation from the conventions – small, independent (mostly one-person businesses), and kind of young. They are part of a new wave of online commerce, opening up their storefronts on websites and Facebook pages. Kuala Lumpur (KL) has always had a love affair with everything sweet. Desserts feature heavily in the Malaysian cuisine. The likes of classic sago with gula Melaka (palm sugar) and bubur cha cha, that is sweet potato cooked with pandan and jackfruit and served in coconut milk with stewed banana, are eaten almost every day. Artisanal bakers have an altogether different kind of love – a breed of bakers who regularly interact with their customers, who do not cut corners on quality ingredients, and express their creative urges through playful, delicious flavors, and exquisitely modern confectionery from the confines of their home kitchens.
Obsessed with perfection and driven by passion, here are four bakers who are comfortably riding the sweet wave.
The accidental baker – Eddie Tan; caketella.com
Baking fascinated Eddie Tan, even when he didn’t quite know how to make cakes. A graduate in the culinary arts, Tan longed for a hands-on enterprise – “I wanted to own my own business and not be part of a commercial kitchen.” Without any capital to launch a restaurant business, Tan turned his kitchen into his practice space – researching and experimenting. He set up Caketella in 2012, selling less than 10 cakes a month online while working full-time in a pastry kitchen. Today, Tan bakes full-time, churning out a whopping 400 cakes a month, of which 80-100 are delivered to 10 popular cafes around the city.
The born baker – Juliana Omar; bisque.com.my
Juliana Omar got her start in baking early on in her mom’s kitchen. Her mother was a baking teacher and taught her all she needed to know. Omar decided in 2013 that she was going to turn such sentimental treasures into the building blocks of a business. She’s been selling online since then. “Ordering a Bisque cake is hassle free and it is delivered to your doorstep with a click,” said Omar.
The versatile baker – Basira Yeusuff; facebook.com/yaykek
The lighthearted name of yay, cake! belies a vision long driven by passion and commitment. Basira Yeusuff set up yay, cake! back in high school because she needed money to buy a set of drums. Her music career was short-lived, but the experience was enough to launch her into the culinary world. She completed a degree in culinary arts and worked in restaurants locally and abroad, before resurrecting her baking business in 2011.
Read complete story in the latest issue of our print magazine Asia Pacific Baker!