PETALING JAYA, July 9 — A claypot is being warmed up. Someone has pulled out the tank of liquid nitrogen (nicknamed Jerry), and then some molecular magic takes place.
A food processor churns. The different components are placed into the warmed claypot, ready for the finishing touch — an infusion of smoke from bak chang (rice dumpling) or bamboo leaves.
The resulting concoction is called Claypot Rice. When the lid is removed, dry smoke wafts from it, giving off a mild, herby aroma. Stick a spoon in and you will end up with a scoop of rice milk snow ice, rice milk gelee, barley pudding, and rice puffs.
It’s an interesting interplay of hot and cold, soft and crispy textures, and flavours that are recognisable yet surprising.
This “white on white on white” creation, as Marcus Low describes it, is one of several plated offerings at his new café, MadHatter Desserts, in Damansara Uptown.
Two years after making it to the finale of MasterChef Asia Season One and wowing judges with his sophisticated take on sweets, which led to him being nicknamed the Dessert King, the former banker has realised his dream of owning a dessert café.
Two years may seem like a long time after achieving TV fame, but as Marcus tells it: “Before I joined the programme, I had a five-year vision [to open a café]... MasterChef accelerated that.”
Prior to MasterChef, he had begun selling cakes online and after the show ended, he quit his day job to focus on establishing MadHatter through a couple of pop-ups as well as catering for events.
For those who watched him on the show, the name makes perfect sense — Marcus was never without a headpiece, a habit that started out of laziness to style his hair and which has now become his signature.
He reveals that he brought six different hats to MasterChef. The term “mad hatter” also aptly describes his ideas and approach. “Admittedly, some of my desserts are pretty out there,” he says. “We have, for example, a watermelon-assam tart, and passionfruit-miso tart.”
The former tastes as refreshing as it looks, with a watermelon disc resting on assam boi curd, encased in a crispy shell. The latter yields an even bigger surprise — the “miso” is actually tao ceo (fermented bean paste).
Made into a panna cotta and piped over the top, it lends a sharp savouriness to the tangy passionfruit. That both are such strong flavours and one is atypical of Western desserts could easily have spelled disaster but here, they are beautifully balanced to a harmonious finish.
“I’ve always liked funky flavours and I love it when combinations don’t make sense on paper, yet when you pop it into your mouth they do!” The Chocolate Calamansi is another example of that, a play on the classic chocolate, feuilletine, and passionfruit curd combo.
“I’ve always loved squeezing ket chai (calamansi) into my mamak food, so I thought of using that instead of passionfruit.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now, Marcus has a penchant for incorporating local flavours into his desserts, for the simple reason that those ingredients are readily available and if they work just as well to achieve the desired taste profile, well then, why not?
As far-fetched as some of the recipes may sound, there is method to the apparent “madness.” “I start by asking myself, what ingredient do I want to celebrate? What emotion should it invoke?” Marcus reveals.
“Then I start thinking of what would pair well, and I always have a base recipe to work from. When considering a new element, the important question to ask is if it works with that base recipe.”
Next on his radar is to pay homage to the humble ham chin peng (Chinese five-spice fried “doughnuts”), a specialty of Triang, Pahang where his girlfriend Shay Ling, who is also the manager at MadHatter, is from.
“I want to try incorporating those flavours into an ice cream,” says Marcus. He hopes to do the same with thosai, and possibly transform teh tarik into an affogato.
Marcus is also working with a lot of cultured ingredients, from the sourdough starter — following a baker’s superstition that starters must be named or they won’t work, MadHatter christened theirs after Malaysian singer, Jessie Chung — for their breads to the butter (choose between kefir and yoghurt) that accompanies each serving of two slices with homemade marmalade, and probiotics like kefir.
The latter imparts a tarty lift to the Choc Delice, a plated heaven of chocolate soil, buttermilk ice-cream, milk kefir gel, chocolate ganache, and hazelnut feuilletine. “I’m not a fan of all things chocolate, I wanted some citrus to cut through but not with the usual fruits. I used buttermilk and kefir instead.”
Reinterpreting existing recipes is another outlet through which Marcus channels his creativity, as evidenced by his Raspberry Rose Lychee, which reimagines French chef Pierre Herme’s famous Ispahan.
Closer to his heart is the Bubur Cha Cha, which he first showcased on MasterChef Asia, in a challenge that asked the remaining three contestants to take one of mum’s recipes and take it to the next level. “Initially I thought of making yam cake, but we were only given 45 minutes. I then switched to bubur cha cha.”
It’s not in the usual tong sui form that we know but a deconstructed-then-reassembled version that’s Western in its approach yet kept all the traditional components.
Marcus has further refined it to an elegant presentation of sweet potato cake under a layer of pumpkin brûlée, garnished with tiny coconut pearls and crowned with a scoop of bubur cha-cha ice cream (coconut milk, yam, sweet potato).
The ice cream is churned in a Pacojet, which micro-purees frozen food in individual portions while maintaining optimum freshness. “It’s like a high-powered ice kacang machine,” Marcus explains. “It shaves your frozen base so smooth that it resembles ice cream, and takes only about 30 seconds to shave one portion.”
There are certainly a lot of surprises behind every item on MadHatter’s menu but that itself is not unexpected; after all, Marcus has not taken a conventional approach to his culinary journey.
For starters, he never had a sweet tooth and leaned towards savoury flavours. But that changed about 10 years ago. “I was dining at a restaurant where the food was good, though not exceptional. Dessert took a long time and as I had a movie to catch, I told them to forget about it and was ready to walk out. The chef came and apologised, and offered their tiramisu on the house to make up for it. I said no but he insisted. ‘Mate, you won’t regret it’, he said. And he was right... the meal had been ok up till then, but the tiramisu made it great. It was the first dessert I truly appreciated, and that was when I decided that I wanted to specialise in desserts.”
He was studying in Melbourne when MasterChef Australia became a huge hit, airing on television daily except Wednesdays. Marcus remembers thinking to himself that if these amateur chefs could do it, so could he. “I would set myself a daily challenge... whatever the contestants did on the show, I’d do the same the next day.”
That’s one part of his self-training, besides reading books and watching YouTube videos. He was more interested in the how, why, where — basically, the science of food. At the same time, he derived joy from cooking. “Feeding people was a happy thing for me.”
Clearly, it still is and judging from the response to MadHatter so far, the feeling is mutual — within two weeks of their opening in early June, they were completely sold out on weekends.
“I’m still at that phase where I can’t believe I have this café... it feels like a dream,” admits Marcus. “I’m very excited and I don’t think I’ll stop feeling that way, and I’ll keep innovating.”
MadHatter Desserts is at Jalan SS21/60 Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Opens 12pm-10pm on weekdays (closed Wednesdays); 11am-11pm on weekends
Note Operation hours are subject to change, check their Instagram (@madhatter_desserts) or Facebook (/MadHatter-Desserts-48212211531730 2/) for updates
Vivian Chong is a freelance writer-editor and founder of thisbunnyhops.com
