Butter makes all the difference for 45-year-old thousand layer cake bakery in Jakarta
JAKARTA: Each layer of the kue lapis legit is believed past Indonesians of Chinese descent to symbolise fortune.
Also known as thousand layer cake, it comprises many thin layers piled on each other, made of butter, margarine, milk and egg.
To add flavour, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg are included, giving the block a colour resembling bacon. Hence, during Indonesia'south Dutch colonial period, the delicacy was known as Spekkoek (bacon cake).
While kue lapis legit is ubiquitous in Jakarta, the cake from Happy Bakery is amidst the most famous due to its sense of taste, history and price.
For 45 years, people accept been patronising the bakery in South Jakarta when Chinese New Year approaches.
"It is a Chinese tradition here to purchase it for the Chinese New Year," owner Liena Gusman told CNA.
"The cake symbolises multiple fortunes, that is why it is sought subsequently during Chinese New year," she added.
The 20cm 10 xx cm cake is bachelor in manifestly season, or with prunes, cheese and walnuts as toppings.
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Information technology is the butter that distinguishes her cake from competitors, said Mdm Gusman, sixty. "We utilize the finest butter, (imported) Dutch butter," she said.
The more than butter a variant has, the more than expensive it becomes.
The cheapest variant, which only uses margarine, goes for 445,000 rupiah (US$31). Depending on the amount of butter used, it can toll upwards to 1,120,000 rupiah. The latter is often dubbed the well-nigh expensive kue lapis legit in town.
"The block is hard to brand. It takes about ii.five to 3 hours," Mdm Gusman said, adding that she does non use any preservative.
FROM RATTAN SELLER TO BAKER
Mdm Gusman is the 2nd-generation owner of Happy Bakery.
Her begetter Gunaifi Lay, 88, was a struggling rattan seller in Palembang, South Sumatra who decided to take his family to Jakarta in 1969 in the hope of earning a improve living.
With only 300 rupiah, Mr Lay rented a room in Cardinal Djakarta for his family unit of half-dozen and had simply money left to buy some eggs.
His wife, an gorging baker, fabricated kue bolu (sponge cake) out of the eggs and Mr Lay decided to sell the cake.
Since Mr Lay was a stranger to Jakarta, he took the autobus and sold it from 1 bus terminal to the other.
Over fourth dimension, sales started to better and a friend told him to make kue lapis legit every bit it was more sought after than sponge cake.
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The motility reaped dividends. Mr Lay later bought a house in South Dki jakarta for his family unit.
They continued to sell cakes to resellers. One day a human being knocked on their door saying that smelled the smell of their lapis legit and wanted to buy one.
That prompted Mr Lay to build a bakery in front of his house in 1976. Since cakes are meant for happy occasions, he named the bakery Happy.
They have never used a particular marketing strategy to promote their cakes and causeless their success was by discussion of mouth.
Apart from kue lapis legit, the bakery also sells the three-layered lapis Surabaya, pineapple tarts, Dutch spekulas cookies and others.
As the first child of four, Mdm Gusman had been helping her late female parent with baking since she was just eight years old.
Coincidentally, she is also the simply child who is interested in baking. Hence, when her parents decided to laissez passer on the business twenty years ago, Mdm Gusman took over.
She remembers the heyday of the baker to be during Republic of indonesia'due south 2nd President Soeharto era when it was yet a custom for people to give acquaintances cakes during festive days such as Chinese New Year and Hari Raya.
"I was baking cakes from 3am until 1am," she reminisced. Their customers included members of Soeharto's family unit and Indonesian celebrities.
Potent DEMAND FROM FOREIGN VISITORS
After Soeharto's fall in 1998, the business was still booming with customers from all over Republic of indonesia and from abroad such as Malaysia, Singapore and fifty-fifty kingdom of the netherlands wanting to get hold of the traditional cake.
Near of the foreign customers are from Malaysia and Singapore, she said.
There were times when tourist buses arrived at the bakery and Malaysian customers wanted to buy their cake for takeaway. They were willing to expect for hours, she recalled.
She had many requests to export her cakes abroad merely she always declined out of fear that the freshness would be compromised, as no preservatives are used.
Since Indonesia has been hit past COVID-19 terminal March, business has been poor, said Mdm Gusman.
"At present it is very bad. Nosotros are simply breaking even."
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Before the pandemic, sales during Chinese New year would increment tenfold. During the Hari Raya menstruation, profit would be up 15 times as compared to the usual, she said.
However, sales were less than a quarter of the usual during last year's Hari Raya. She had to allow go of about half of her twenty staff.
Fifty-fifty though this year's Chinese New year is predicted to be more than subdued than usual due to COVID-19, Mdm Gusman hopes her loyal patrons will still purchase her lapis legit.
"They usually buy the cake iii days earlier Chinese New year's day. So hopefully this year they volition withal come."
Read this story in Bahasa Indonesia here.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-kueh-lapis-legit-jakarta-happy-bakery-covid19-cny-183226
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