KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28: “Kuih bulan” or moon cakes are traditional sweet Chinese pastries served during the mid-autumn festival and are often found in four dominant flavours, namely red bean, lotus seed paste, salted egg yolk and mix nuts.
However, the husband and wife team of Nur Asyikin Moham Jafar, 30, and Ruzaini Azri Rosdi, 31, from Tapah, Perak, who have been in the mooncake business since 2019, have come up with a variety of new flavours for their mooncakes.
Their mooncakes come in 10 traditional and modern flavours, including pandan, matcha, chocolate with white chocolate, chocolate with dalgona coffee, green tea with caramel and chocolate with blueberries.
The moon cakes that are highly demanded by my customers are dark chocolate, chocolate caramel and chocolate chips,” said Nur Asyikin.
They are in high demand because of their low-fat content and are preservative-free, as well as not very sweet, she explained.
“I want my customers to enjoy sweet pastries more healthily and they are not only loved by my Muslim customers but also the Chinese and Indian communities,” she said.
“The most complicated thing in the making of a moon cake is making the skin. To make the skin, we need golden syrup, which is self-made, and mix it with flour to form a dough.
“I will bake the moon cakes up to three times for 12 minutes each so that the result is beautiful and long-lasting,” she said, adding that she produced up to 500 moon cakes daily,” said Nur Asyikin, who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Office Systems Management from Universiti Teknologi Mara.
She said the demand for moon cakes is seasonal. “It is sought only during the moon cake festival, which is from the end of August to September.
“The difficulty in getting halal moon cakes is the reason that prompted my husband and I to venture into this field,” she said, adding that she plans to add two more flavours, tiramisu and pistachio, to her moon cake products.
Nur Asyikin said it was her mother-in-law who gave her the idea. “She also taught me how to make mooncakes according to the original recipe,” she said, adding that her next plan is to open a shop in Ipoh, hopefully in two years.
— BERNAMA