The Story of Jenni's Homemade Cakes

GEORGE TOWN: Most Penangites with a sweet tooth will know Jenni’s Homemade Cakes and Bakery in Pulau Tikus. The inconspicuous bakery has drawn cake lovers from all over the northern region for the past 16 years, from celebrities and royalty to the ordinary man in the street.

Its founder, 54-year-old Jenni Khoo, grew up in poverty and her childhood experiences gave her a never-say-die attitude which she has translated into three cake shops on the island and plans to open a fourth at Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Selangor (No. 7-1 Jalan PJU 5/15, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya 47810)

Khoo’s father was a trishaw peddler and his meagre income was hardly enough to feed his 12 children, wife and mother. “When I was young, I used to help my dad and his mother sell Chinese cakes at the Pulau Tikus market in the mornings. We were told then that learning a skill was much more important than going to school. “I only went to school until I was 12, after which I was sent off to work as a maid, looking after young children and doing housework. I was paid RM15 a month and I only went home for half a day once a month.

“I had to be up at 5am to start the housework which did not end until 10pm daily. Those days are so clear in my mind. Even then, I was determined to succeed no matter what happened. “Now I have foreign maids working for me and I teach them baking, icing and moulding flowers so they will be skilled and better equipped for their future,” Khoo said.

At 16 years old, Khoo went to work in a tailor’s shop for RM35 a month and at 18 she moved to Kuala Lumpur where she worked in a supermarket by day and as a laundress at night, at the same time selling a little insurance on the side. After four years she returned to Penang and worked at a five-star hotel during the day for the next 14 years in the laundry, as a waitress and a telephone operator. She moonlighted as a Carlsberg promoter at night. It was at the hotel where she and her brother worked that her brother learned the art of baking.

 “The hotel was famous for its cheesecakes and we used to buy them by the dozen for our family and friends as we were given employee discounts. It was then I decided to try baking cakes from home,” Khoo said.

She and her other siblings invested in a RM6,000 oven and a professional Hobart cake mixer for RM4,800. After a while, a few of her siblings emigrated to Australia and she employed a maid to help with the increasing orders but she couldn’t cope. Two business partners came in with RM10,000 each but the partnership fizzled out.

“In 1995, I opened an outlet near the Pulau Tikus police station with my savings of RM20,000 but the place wasn’t viable and I moved to the present shop with a RM20,000 loan from the entrepreneur development fund,” Khoo said. She said her siblings helped out and she went from banks to shopping complexes and offices giving out free cake samples and selling cakes. Khoo even delivered cakes as far as Bayan Baru for free on her motorcycle. She sold her cakes at the wet market and joined the Lions Club and Toastmasters where she garnered many of her customers.

Now, she has an outlet in Bayan Baru and she will open a specialised cake shop called The Unusual in Pulau Tikus this month. She is planning to open another outlet in Kota Damansara by year-end. Each new outlet involves an RM80,000 investment. “Initially, we had no experience in icing cakes. We had children crying in the cake shop when they found their Mickey Mouse looking more like a rat and the Power Rangers not looking quite like they should,” Khoo said, adding that she was the first in Penang to decorate cakes with sugar paste while the rest were still using butter cream.

Today, Jenni’s sells more than 30 different types of cake with an assortment of flavours and fillings. Khoo’s eggless cakes for vegetarians are very popular. She uses imported ingredients as she does not believe in compromising on the quality of the cakes. Each of the shops in Pulau Tikus and Bayan Baru sell over 100 cakes a day. Among the best sellers are Khoo’s cheesecake and chocolate brownie cake.

Jenni’s is a family business, with nine siblings, nephews and nieces involved. There are 22 employees in total. “Once I have established an outlet, I hand it over to my nephews and nieces to run. I plan to open up more so each will have their own shop,” said Khoo, who has 14 nephews and nieces, four of them in Australia. One of her nieces, Lean See, an economics graduate, is now running the Bayan Baru shop after taking several cake decorating courses.

 Though Khoo has served tantalising cakes to celebrities like Anita Sarawak, her most challenging cake to date was a nine-tier wedding cake a few years ago. She said she feared it would come crashing down during the dinner. Khoo said though her business is flourishing now, she continuously upgrades her cake decorating and baking skills. She has learned from the masters of cake decorating, including renowned British cake decorator Eddie Spence, who has decorated cakes for British royal weddings for more than half a century. He was responsible for Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding cake and the official cake for Queen Elizabeth’s golden wedding anniversary among others.

Khoo has also attended classes conducted by Briton Peggy Porschen, cake decorator to the stars and famous cake decorators like Helen Dunn and Lorraine McKay. Khoo and her brother Khay Poh also travel to Switzerland and Europe regularly to keep up with the latest cake decorating techniques there and she attends the annual cake decorating competition in London, organised by the Squires Kitchen International School of Sugarcraft and Cake Decorating. No cake design is impossible for Khoo, and she is game to try any idea a customer suggests, from Chanel and Louis Vuitton handbags to castles and dolls.

Besides cakes, Jenni’s is also famous for cookies, cream puffs and various tarts. Orders come from as far away as Kuala Lumpur and Alor Setar, while foreign customers from Hong Kong and Japan buy cookies to take home. Khoo admits that her packaging is not as fancy as at other cake shops, but she said, “other cake shops give you nice packaging but they charge the cost to you. I prefer to put more ingredients into the cake and charge less. After all, the packaging usually is not even recycled and ends up in the bin.”

At least five of her employees have gone on to set up their own shops after working with Khoo for a few years. “I am happy for them as they are doing well but I prefer to help my family members. I have no intention of growing too big. All I want is to ensure that my nephews and nieces do not have to worry about their future once I set up a shop for each of them,” she said. Her cakes start from RM13 for a loaf cake and RM30 for a 500g cake. Khoo also offers baking and cake decorating courses and is hoping to start selling cake mixes soon at all the shops.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, September 5, 2011. http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/features/192371-building-an-empire-one-cake-at-a-time.html