KUALA LUMPUR: Baking their signature “Rich Fruit Cake” is a special once-a-year occasion for the children and co-founder of Lighthouse Children Welfare Home Association Kuala Lumpur and Selangor in Lucky Garden, Bangsar, here.
The older children at the home, under the guidance of co-founder Jacinta Steven, would bake dozens of the fruit cake which is a must-have dessert savoured during the Christmas celebrations.
Jacinta, 63, uses a recipe that she and her sisters had inherited from their mother. She is now passing it down to the home’s teen residents.
Since early December, the faithful baking oven at the home which was contributed by the Association of British Women in Malaysia, has been working overtime to meet orders for the fruit cake.
Jacinta, who founded the home with her 66-year-old husband Steven Silvaraju, said they have baked some 80 fruit cakes in the past several weeks.
With only a few more days before Christmas, orders for the fruit cake from Klang Valley folks are still coming in.
She said it has been a tradition to sell the fruit cakes to raise funds for the children's’ educational needs since the home was set up in October 2004.
“When December comes, the children will get excited to bake and they will form their production line. Dried fruits are cut and soaked with liquor ahead in October.
“As it is now the school holidays, we bake during weekdays and they will be assigned to specific tasks such as lining the cake tins, breaking eggs, sifting flour and mixing.
“It is during this time that we can bond. The oven can only fit nine cakes at a time so the process is long. While patiently waiting for it to be ready, we talk about baking. They will ask if the baking business is lucrative and they are happy to see customers coming to pick up the fruit cakes. They understand the value of (hard work and) money.
“It goes beyond just baking fruit cakes to be sold for Christmas. It is about memories, too. Most importantly, they get to keep my family’s precious fruit cake recipe and continue the tradition in the future.
“They are my children and they have been with me for so many years. So I do not mind that they inherit it as some of them inspire to become bakers,” Jacinta told the New Straits Times today.
Apart from fruit cakes as their best seller, they also offer shortbread cookies as well as pineapple tarts.
All of the proceeds are channelled to the home and the children to buy school books and pay for their tuition fees.
The home has 72 children aged between two and 24. It includes 36 Orang Asli children from Gua Musang in Kelantan.
Aside from baking, the children have also been invited to spread the festive cheer by singing Christmas carols at various locations.