BBC Hails Sarawak’s ‘Kek Lapis’ As The Crown Jewel Of Ramadan Feasts
BBC interviewed two Sarawakian engineers-turned-bakers to learn more about the beautiful layered cakes known as kek lapis.
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Mention kek lapis and we’ll immediately think of the sweet smell and colourful patterns of the delicious cakes.
BBC recently wrote an article about kek lapis, calling it the most beautiful cake for Ramadan. In the article, they interviewed two Malaysian Sarawak kek lapis bakers, Sharifah Zainon (Seri) and Karen Chai, to learn more about this pretty dessert.
Interestingly, both women were formerly engineers before switching careers and venturing into baking.
Chai studied pastry arts at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and decided to try out her mother’s kek lapis recipes upon returning home.
After BBC watched Seri make kek lapis, BBC said the process of making kek lapis is like conducting a science experiment. The cake is made by layering multiple thin layers, colours, and flavours to produce the desired patterns.
A kek lapis typically has a minimum of 12 layers but it can go up to 20. Layering the cake to produce vivid and creative patterns requires tons of planning and precision. One wrong move and the cake’s patterns and colours can go awry.
The origins of Kek Lapis Sarawak
Kek lapis Sarawak originally came from Indonesia. In the 19th century, the Dutch colonisers introduced the plain European spit cake that’s made with layers of dough deposited one by one onto a cylindrical rotating spit, to the nation known as Batavia (now modern-day Jakarta).
Indonesians added flavours using local spices such as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and turned it into the lapis legit, also known as the thousand-layer cake.
Upon its arrival in Malaysia in the 1970s, Sarawakians elevated the cake to a sublime art form that we still enjoy and marvel at today.
Kek lapis Sarawak was included in the Malaysian heritage food list in 2015.
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