You’ve heard of nasi lemak cakes, chicken rice cakes, and even chilli crab cakes, but now a home-based business is selling mee goreng cakes and it’s gaining popularity among the Indonesian-Chinese community in Singapore.

Homemaker Dian Lin, an Indonesian-Chinese, who runs online business

Nyonya Pantry, came up with the idea of creating the noodle cake for her husband’s birthday in April. “I was too lazy to bake a cake for my husband, so I made a mee goreng cake for him instead. After I shared photos of it on Instagram, I started getting requests for it,” says the 37-year-old, who moved to Singapore from West Java in 2012.

The springy cake is made using Indonesian-style mee goreng (cooked from scratch and not using instant noodles like Indomie), and has been popular with customers celebrating their birthdays. According to Dian, the Indonesian version of mee goreng is sweeter than most versions found in Singapore due to the addition of more kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). It also doesn’t contain ketchup, which is often used in local versions.

“It’s a tradition for Indonesian-Chinese to eat mee goreng on their birthday as noodles symbolise longevity. I also decorate the cake with red eggs as we eat that on birthdays too,” says Dian, adding that she gets around three to five orders of the cake a week.

Her mee goreng is “on the sweeter and peppery side” and instead of yellow noodles, which is typically used in the Singaporean version, Dian uses “thinner egg noodles” similar to mee kia. She elaborates: “I don’t add any chilli in my mee goreng as I don’t want it to overpower the dish. Plus, a lot of customers want to celebrate their birthday with kids, so they request for it to be non-spicy.”

Dian tells us she doesn’t compact the noodles into a cake mould like most recipes recommend as this would “make the noodles very hard”. To hold the strands in place, a plastic cake collar is taped down to the base, but the downside of this is, you won’t be able to cut the cake.

“I want the mee to be loose and springy, like how it is when served freshly cooked. When you want to eat it, just dish the noodles out from the ‘cake’,” she explains.

The creation comes topped with ingredients like pretty omelette ‘roses’, hard-boiled eggs, fish cake and red eggs. Additional toppings like fried prawns are available at extra cost.

Her cakes come in two sizes: small and large. The small, which feeds three pax, is priced at $36, and the large, which feeds six, is $53. All cakes come with a side of spicy achar and have to be pre-ordered three days in advance.

Those who want to level up – literally – can opt for the “flying” mee goreng cake.

The gravity-defying cake, which features noodles seemingly floating in mid-air, hanging off a pair of hovering chopsticks, is available at just $3 more.

Despite the fun element, Dian says her regular mee goreng cake is still more popular with customers. “Usually, customers only order the flying noodle cake for kids’ birthdays,” she says.

Other than mee goreng cakes, Dian also sells Indonesian-style dishes like nasi bakar ayam suwir (grilled rice with shredded chicken), nasi uduk pandan (pandan coconut rice dish with sides like hard-boiled egg and spiced shredded chicken) as well as tiramisu, though she opens orders for these only when she has time.

“I do everything myself, from the shopping of ingredients to the cooking, and the mee goreng cakes are taking up most of my time. I have orders for cakes almost every day and they are usually for weekdays, so I can only sell the other food on weekends,” explains the mother-of-one.

As most of her customers are Indonesians, Dian hopes to expand her customer base to include locals and is open to making cakes with other noodle dishes.

“If I have time, I don’t mind making other types of noodle cakes like Indomie mee goreng. That’s quite easy,” she says.

Prior to starting Nyonya Pantry in August last year, Dian used to work as a clinic assistant. She quit her job in 2017 when she was expecting her son.

To order, Whatsapp 97831074.

https://www.instagram.com/nyonyapantry.sg/

Photos: Nyonya Pantry