Keeping the Indonesian recipe authentic

JAYNE LOO

How often do you come across old recipes from your ancestors that make you remember your mother’s cooking or desserts? Some authentic recipes can’t seem to be preserved properly to maintain the original taste. Even recipes from thirty years or even longer. However, Mariana Fuddin managed to make that miracle happen.

‘Angela’ Mariana Fuddin is an Indonesian Chinese home baker who moved to Malaysia twenty-two years ago. She is currently married in Malaysia and has three daughters. Apart from being a housewife and a wonderful wife to her husband, Angela is also a home baker with the name of ‘Angela Home Baker’ who specialises in Indonesian Layer Cake - of course, the authentic kind. Not only did she manage to preserve her grandmother’s recipe, she even brought the recipe to Malaysia to let the locals try the specialties of Indonesia.

“Indonesian Layer Cake or kue lapis legit was developed by the Dutch East Indies during the colonial times, soon it became a famous dessert for celebrations in Indonesia,” Angela said. She said she recalls memories of her having the famous dessert among her family during Chinese New Year. “My grandmother used to own a bakery in Medan, Indonesia when the Dutch used to rule Indonesia. She would sell kue lapis and other kinds of bread. But she was famous for her kue lapis around the neighbourhood.

Graduating from a degree in Home Economics in Taiwan, the 53-year -old was once a kindergarten teacher for a few years and the baking business became a ‘only weekend job’. When she realised that it was just too hard for her to handle, she quit and worked as a full time home baker.

“My mother and grandmother taught me how to bake my first cake when I was 12, it was a fruit cake,” Angela reminises while taking out her recipe book with all the recipes written by her grandmother. “Until today, all the recipes I used are from my grandmother and my mother. I rarely change the recipes, I want to maintain the original taste of the food when I bake it for my children so they know that this was my taste when I was a kid just like them.” Being the only child in the family who knows how to bake, Angela often bakes for her mother whenever she comes home to visit. Other than kue lapis, Angela is skilled to bake cookies and other desserts.

Angela started off only baking for her neighbours and family during Chinese New Year and events when she first moved. Then slowly, she started getting praises from them then word got out. She was given suggestions to open up her own business with her talent. She received her first order in 2010 and has been baking since. Not only Angela sells the original kue lapis, she also sells prune layer cake and fruit layer cake.

The beautiful kue lapis may be elegant to the eye, but the process of making it tends to need a bit more hard work. Every ingredient used is premium ingredients to ensure customers get the best taste and originality of the cake. “I always avoid baking my orders in the afternoon because that’s when the house gets messy so I bake in the morning, like 5am,” Angela shares. “It gives me more peace so I can concentrate on the recipe. It takes me around an hour to just prepare the batter, then 2 hours of sitting to bake the cake layer by layer till it reaches 13 layers. Orders are usually made 2 days before the delivery date, so the cake is perfectly moist by the time customers receive their orders.

Angela imports her spices directly from Indonesia wherever she goes back to visit her parents. The amount she brings back from Indonesia is enough for a year’s business until she goes back again. Usually, she would get a lot of orders during important festivals like Chinese New Year or Christmas. “Recipe is a secret though, it’s an old recipe.” Angela laughed while shaking her head. However, the spices are the core of the whole cake.

“The hardest part of my job is making plans to bake,” Angela keeps a calendar just for her baking as her cakes are only ‘baked to order’. “Because I am a home baker, it’s difficult for me to have ready baked cakes. Although ingredients are easy to get and the kue lapis can be kept for almost 1 week without being in the fridge, I still want to make sure that customers get their order freshly made. It is also hard for me to accept orders from overseas or bulk orders because you may never know when the customers change their mind, making these are not easy.” Angela recalls bad incidents when she first started her business.

Lucky for Angela, her authentic taste of her kue lapis successfully attracted customers of all ages, even customers of two generations! There were a few that ordered her cake to take it overseas with them. Many have praised her cakes as ‘authentic’ and ‘heart-warming’. “Lucky for me, I do have friends around to promote my kue lapis to other friends during house events so eventually I do receive customers although I don’t have stable social media management. It’s all about being original.” Angela does have a few loyal customers who still order from her during festivals and events as a gift for their visitors.

Almost for 20 years, Angela has been baking for loyal customers and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. “I think I’d wait for all my children to go to college first, then I’ll only plan to ‘retire’ from the job,” she sighs. Angela has been always hoping for one of her daughters to take over the business and continue the legacy. “It’s difficult, especially when all of them are busy studying, I [also] started my business after I got married. Maybe one day one of them would take over.” Her eyes filled with hope.