Works of art: Koay showcasing her homemade jelly mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. — LIM BENG TATT/The Star
GEORGE TOWN: Former accountant Angie Koay is always finding ways to give a modern twist to the jelly mooncakes she makes for the Mid-Autumn Festival
.The 35-year-old, who has been crafting her signature jelly mooncakes for the past nine years, wants to introduce new flavours in her mooncakes while keeping true to tradition.
That is why she takes pride in using only the best ingredients, like Japanese matcha, fresh red dragon fruit and Japanese agar, because quality is everything to her and she wants each bite to be memorable.
For this year, she came up with seven flavours for her jelly mooncakes, such as osmanthus with goji berry and longan, dragon fruit with milk, lychee with milk and rose petals and gula melaka with cendol and blue pea.
“I use natural ingredients for my products. I like to add a personal touch by growing my own butterfly pea flowers, which I use to create a natural blue colouring for my mooncakes,” she added.
When Koay was working at a technology multinational company, she used to make jelly mooncakes for her colleagues.
“It was just for fun. One day, a colleague offered to pay me to make some jelly mooncakes and I thought to myself that I could turn my passion into a profitable venture,” she said.
Koay is now producing an estimated 4,000 jelly mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on Sept 17.
Her husband Charles Tan, 34, who runs an event management company in Gelugor, is also supporting her venture. Despite his busy schedule, Tan handles the logistics and deliveries.
“He’s my biggest cheerleader. He’s always there, making sure everything runs smoothly,” Koay said.
The business has become a family affair, with Koay’s mother lending a hand in the kitchen.
Koay said her mooncake venture is not just about the delicacy.
“It’s about the memories we’re creating and the traditions we’re keeping alive,” she added.
Despite the rising costs of ingredients, she has kept her prices the same as last year’s, a decision driven by her desire to make her mooncakes accessible to all.
“The joy of sharing these mooncakes is worth more than the extra cost,” she said.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival, falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar.
During the Shang Dynasty some 3,500 years ago, this period was deemed the most auspicious for celebrating the harvest season and families would venture out to admire the moon.
There are several legends associated with the festival, but the most popular is that of Chang Er, the wife of a cruel king.
To save her people from her husband’s tyrannical rule, she drank the elixir of immortality he had intended to drink himself, and ascended to the moon.
