KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 26 — It’s less than a month to Christmas, which means there’s no better time than right now to get a head start on procuring your favourite festive goodies!

For the holiday season, perhaps there is no gift more joyful than some beautiful baked goods.

Cheras based bakery-café Liminal is offering three special items — an Orange Chocolate Babka Wreath, a Rum & Raisin Bundt Cake, and a flavourful Bread & Butter Bundle.

Owner Adrienne Cho shares, "Liminal began as a means of sharing our families’ favourite bakes. All that we’ve offered on our menu are from something someone in our family enjoys, and it is somewhat the base of our inspiration and creative works.”

Such creativity is showcased in Liminal’s Orange Chocolate Babka Wreath, a decadent babka swirled with orange and Kota Marudu 70 per cent dark chocolate from Chocolate Concierge, shaped into a festive wreath.

For lovers of bundt cakes, their Rum & Raisin Bundt Cake is moist and infused with dark rum and raisins. (Do note that as it contains alcohol, this cake is non-halal.)

Liminal’s Bread & Butter Bundle features their house-made country sourdough loaf and two compound butters made with Beurre d’Isigny churned butter.

Cho says, "The Kalbi Butter is inspired by Korean BBQ flavours, rich in umami, while the Citrus Tea Butter blends lemon and orange with black tea notes.”

The family centred nature of the bakery-café, co-founded by Cho’s husband Timothy Lee and her sister-in-law Phoebe Lee, is an essential part of Liminal’s charm.

Cho explains, "It all started with baking what my boys enjoyed, and we soon shared our bakes with families and friends; one thing led to another and now we have the opportunity of baking these things for others as well. When you enjoy our bakes, you are already halfway to getting to know us as a family!”

To streamline their Christmas orders, these items will only be available for pre-order so visit Liminal’s IG page for the pre-order schedule and cut off dates.

For some of us, Christmas is an opportunity to celebrate by resetting and eating more healthily in the coming year. But where to begin?

Enter Wise Crafters, a healthy meal plan delivery business that began with overnight oats before expanding to include other nutritious food products such as kefirs, smoothie bowls, quinoa salads, sandwich wraps and plant milks.

This Christmas, Wise Crafters has introduced their irresistible Tofumisu Parfaits, made with a tofu-based cream.

The Tofumisu Parfaits are available in two flavours: Strawberry Cocoa Sundae, with layers of rich cocoa, juicy strawberries, crunchy cacao nibs, and sweet banana slices; and Matcha Chestnut Escape, where creamy matcha goodness meets the earthy sweetness of chestnut.

Both parfaits contain organic oats, organic chia seeds, organic soy milk and raw honey. The idea here is to create a parfait that was delicious and creamy yet had no trans-fat, no dairy and reduced sugar.

Wise Crafters founder Samantha Ng says, "Our parfaits are made with our signature tofu-based cream, making them cholesterol-free, low in calories, and high in protein. We made this special Christmas dessert because we know people love things like tiramisu and parfaits, but also want to be healthy.”

As such a lot of effort was put into this festive R&D project. Ng shares, "It was a collaborative effort within our nutrition team, with key contributions from Ms Pei Ci, who is set to graduate as a nutritionist next May.”

The Wise Crafters team even went as far as conducting food tasting to further improve their initial recipe. Ng recalls, "We even had people at PARC Subang Ria try it and give us feedback! At first, the parfait was only brown and white (from the cocoa and tofu), but now it’s much more colourful and festive.”

Speaking of festivities, there is no bread more closely identified with Christmas than the Italian panettone — a cylindrical sweet bread from Milan that is traditionally studded with candied orange peel and raisins.

In Malaysia, Twenty-Two Bakery, a 100 per cent sourdough bakery founded by husband-and-wife team Ang Bo Ling and Yap Yee Teng, is widely regarded as the panettone pioneer; they have been rolling out panettone every year since they started in 2018.

There are three flavours of panettone available: the traditional Classico, with orange and raisins; Cioccolato using Malaysian single origin chocolate from Chocolate Concierge; and Caramello, which features caramel and bananas.

After participating in a workshop led by Italian baking experts, Ang shares how he gained new insight on premium panettone: "We have incorporated everything we learned, along with our previous experiences, into this year’s production.”

Twenty-Two Bakery, Ang says, is committed to using more sustainable flour and they had improved their panettone recipe to enhance its flavour as well as its texture — now softer and moister.

He adds, "This year, instead of introducing a new flavour, we are concentrating on enhancing our existing panettone selections and presenting another Italian Christmas bread that holds the same prestige as panettone: the pandoro.”

Given that panettone and pandoro both hail from Italy, it’s no surprise that Italians always debate which Christmas bread is superior. Originating from the northern town of Verona, pandoro is renowned for its classic star shape.

Ang explains, "Those outside Italy often refer to pandoro as ‘plain panettone’ but the simpler the food, the harder it is to prepare. Unlike the taste-packed panettone, the flavour profile of pandoro only consists of butter, cocoa butter and vanilla. It took us four years to finalise our recipe, as we aim to offer a pandoro that truly stands apart.”

So whether it’s a Yuletide quartet of babka, bundt cake, bread and butter; or light yet nutrition packed tofu mousse based parfaits for a more health conscious gift; or the Italian classics of panettone and pandoro, you are primed for a very merry Christmas indeed!

Liminal

72, Jalan 30A/119, Taman Taynton View, Cheras, KL

Open Thu-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1-4pm, Mon-Wed closed

Phone: 012-927 2523

Visit the following page for pre-order schedule:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/liminal.kl/

Wise Crafters

2, Jalan PJS 10/2, Bandar Sunway, PJ

Phone: +6011-16724957

To purchase the Christmas Tofumisu Parfaits and the rest of their Merry Fitmas Collection, visit https://wisecrafters.my/collections/merry-fitmas

Twenty-Two Bakery 二十二號烘培坊

4-G, Jalan Ara SD 7/3B, Bandar Sri Damansara, KL

Open Tue-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun-Mon closed

Phone: 017-996 0305

Visit the following pages for pre-order schedules:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/twenty2bakery_/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/twenty2bakery/