KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 — As the world spins towards automation, Fook Pan Food Industries still laboriously craft their mooncakes by hand.
Spearheading Fook Pan Food Industries are octogenarians KS Goh and his wife WY Shue. Their mooncake journey is one backed by a strong culinary background as the couple operated a cooking school they started back in the 1970s.
What's interesting is that they moved to become a commercial producer some years back. However, they decided to give that up, preferring the traditional ways to maintain the quality of their mooncakes.
The cooking school was started by Shue who grew up in Hong Kong. She picked up her cooking skills from her family who ran a coffee shop there.
In the beginning, she would invite a few friends over to learn how to make traditional Chinese pastries and dishes. As business grew, Shue pulled her husband, Goh, to join.
Even though Goh was dabbling in business, he also had a culinary background thanks to his family who ran a coffee shop in the Chow Kit area.
Their daughter Rebecca recalled how the cooking school even worked with Lee Kum Kee to introduce their Hong Kong char siu sauce here.
As they taught how to make mooncakes, many of their students also asked them to sell the mooncakes during the festive season.
In 1985, Goh decided to put a spin on tradition with their chocolate mooncakes. The idea was born out of making the traditional mooncake more palatable to those who had never tasted one before.
This was during the time when many travelled overseas to study so these mooncakes became gifts for friends there.
With a lot of experimenting and even tasting with Rebecca's school friends, the mooncake became a success.
A key to the success of the mooncake was their lotus paste. This needed to be less sweet, otherwise the combination with melted chocolate would make it inedible.
As you bite into the chocolate mooncake, you get the deep fragrance and taste of the chocolate. This draws you in to make you want to eat more. It's no wonder that the chocolate mooncake remains their bestseller even 20 years after it was introduced.
Another original creation is the butter mooncake. You have a butter cookie crust that encloses lotus paste and a custard filling.
Their success led to them going commercial in 1989 where they expanded production at a factory. During their heydays, their mooncakes would be available at supermarkets.
Rebecca also explained that they were the first producers who offered a mix of flavours in one box. Till today, they offer that combination which is popular for gifts as it offers a variety of tastes.
However after 10 years, they decided to move back to small-scale production and sold the factory. A key factor for this was the growing age of Goh and his wife. Moreover, the quality of their lotus paste was slightly compromised with the use of machines to mix it.
Goh explained that when you make the lotus paste by hand, you can adjust the ingredients to get the texture you prefer. Again, it takes an experienced hand who has been making mooncakes for many years to pick up these nuances. With a machine, the heat it produces during the mixing, tends to lead to some hardening of the lotus paste.
You can clearly see how smooth and buttery their lotus paste is. This makes a huge difference with each bite of the mooncake.
With your orders, you can select from traditional flavours like the baked variety filled with lotus paste, white lotus paste, black sesame, red bean paste and pandan jade which is pandan flavoured lotus paste. There's also assorted nuts or ng yan, which is done well with a balance of mixed nuts and dried mandarin peel.
Their snowskin or ping pei mooncakes are also highly sought after as the skin is superb with its silky, smooth bite. Unlike other places, the combination of the soft skin matches their equally soft lotus paste filling, making it an incredibly harmonious bite that you cannot stop eating.
The key to their snow skin mooncakes is the use of China sourced kou fun or glutinous rice flour. The ping pei mooncakes are also made fresh, which sets them apart from those who prepare them ahead.
Select from various flavours such as lychee, dark latte with chocolate lotus paste, chocolate mint, earl grey chocolate and so forth for the snowskin mooncakes.
As they went commercial back in the 1990s, their mooncakes are all pork free.
Rebecca is the next generation to take over her parents legacy. As the couple expanded the business for the mooncakes, she decided to come onboard. Seeing how hard her parents were working, she gave up a job offer in Singapore to help the family business.
Rebecca reminisces about the daily hardship her parents experienced in the early days. They would pick her up after school and drive to various small towns like Bentong to give cooking classes. During their peak, they had branches in Ipoh and Petaling Jaya.
Since she joined, Rebecca does most of the back breaking work even though she prefers to stay in the background. Throughout the years, she has also picked up the finer details of the craft too through watching her parents make the mooncakes.
Even with the Covid-19 restrictions, life still continued for Fook Pan. They pivoted to introduce a model where the mooncakes are made from pre-orders via Telegram. Rebecca reflects that it is better for them as the pre-orders (at least seven days before the mooncakes are delivered) meant they can control the quantity and quality of the mooncakes better.
As her parents are high risk because of their age, Rebecca prefers less exposure to the public too. Hence, visits are limited and all of their mooncakes are sent out by delivery, which Fook Pan usually handles themselves.
After the Mid-Autumn festival is over, Fook Pan focuses on the other festivals like Chinese New Year and Christmas where they bake various cookies like florentines. High on the list is their pineapple Nastar with rolls of buttery pastry combined together with pineapple jam.
The family holds strong to maintaining the quality of their products. "I think I am a perfectionist as I will do my best to maintain the regular customers," explained Rebecca.
That dedication to maintaining quality saw Rebecca omitting their peanut cookies last year from the Chinese New Year offerings. As Fook Pan couldn't source the right type of peanuts to give it that distinct fragrance, she didn't want to produce a sub-standard cookie.
These are the challenges they face as supply chains are disrupted. Nevertheless, Rebecca still tests out each ingredient every year, sourcing only those that make the mark since some suppliers also changed their quality.
It's the same sentiment echoed by Goh, who will continue to make the mooncakes from scratch. What drives him to continue, is the support and appreciation of customers over the years.
Fook Pan Food Industries, 274A, First Floor, Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur. Tel:+603-40427676. For orders and the full details of the mooncakes visit https://www.fookpan.com, where you can place your orders via a webform or Telegram. The last day for pre-orders is August 25. The last delivery date is September 8. Also note that orders must be placed seven working days before it can be collected. Delivery for the mooncakes are charged separately.
