KOTA BAHARU: With the Chinese New Year celebrations coming round the corner, many Chinese families are now busy preparing all kinds of cakes and delicacies for the festival.
Among them, ‘nian gao’ is a-must as offering during the auspicuous occasion and as the process for making the delicacy is rather tedious, most people prefer to purchase them for the celebrations.
To the Chinese here, traditional cake-maker, Lee Gee Ann, 75, is well-known for his delicious and quality nian gao.
To achieve the standard he has been famous for, Lee meticulously cooks the nian gao through steaming for 18 hours so the cake would attain an attractive colour and lasts longer.
“Most makers will usually take 12 hours but the extra steaming is required for a smoother texture apart from the other time-consuming processes,” he told Bernama.
Lee said in one steaming session from 9am to 3am, he could produce about 300 pieces of nian gao.
To ensure he could meet requests and maintain the quality of the cake, Lee usually limited orders at between 3,000 to 5,000 pieces as nian gao will only be made two weeks before the Chinese New Year.
“This is also to avoid the cake becoming too hard if it is made earlier,” said Lee who was assisted by eight workers including his wife, Mok Luan Chin, 70.
He started learning to prepare nian gao at the age of seven from his mother, Gan Chuan Way, as the process was rather tedious and time-consuming.
“The ingredients are just glutinious rice and sugar but the kneading process takes time and skills,” said the father of four. — Bernama