Traditional Chinese bakeries hand make and bake their cakes, biscuits and pastries right there at the shop. Rolling, pressing, shaping dough, and baking, are all labour and skill intensive processes.
Chin Hiang Chay Teochew Bakery established in 1941 makes many different types of traditional cakes and pastries for different occasions such as weddings, baby one month, birthdays, Chinese New Year, Mooncake festival, etc.
Traditional Chinese bakeries are essential in communities as they provide the cakes, biscuits, and pastries needed for celebrations and festivities from birth to cradle, throughout the milestones of life such as weddings, birthdays, till the grave.
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| Owner Tsan Tze Hian |
As we were at Chin Hiang Chay just before Chinese New Year, CNY goodies of all kinds were in full glory.
I bought pineapple tarts (and other pastries).
Chin Hiang Chay's hand made pineapple tarts were excellent - the crumbly buttery crust generously filled with fresh grated pineapple.
Owner Tsan Tze Hian proudly showing us the precious wooden moulds for sugar sculpture (lion) for Chinese New Year Chap Goh Mei 十五晚 or Lantern Festival.
These are Teochew sugar sculpture lions known as tang si 糖狮 which are used as offerings for deities and ancestors. After prayers, the sugar sculptures (those made with no additives) can be dissolved into syrup for cooking or flavouring use.
(Over in Singapore, there is only one person Koh Sun Lian 许良全 who still makes sugar sculpture lions. It is a disappearing craft.)
Bakery name: Chin Hiang Chay 振香斋饼家
Address: 165, Jalan Padungan, 93100 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
Tel: +608 224 3814
Hours: 8am - 6pm
Written by Tony Boey on 23 Feb 2024
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