.jpg?ext=.jpg "Meet The Baker Who Crafted A Beautiful Cake For Our Shy Malaysian Superhero")
Appearing daily through live press conferences on social media, health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is the go to face for all COVID-19 related information in Malaysia.
When he celebrated his birthday recently, Malaysians joined in to celebrate too with cards and cakes flooding his office.
One creation, however, stood out from the rest.
A beautifully crafted double-tiered salted, caramel, pecan butterscotch and pistachio creation by Banker2Baker - a unique boutique cake company.
.jpg.aspx "Banker2baker on Instagram")
Great response
Speaking to Rojak Daily, Banker2Baker founder 56-year-old Zulkiflee Mawan said he was over the moon with the flood of positive feedback on the cake."It was a very last minute order by my former colleagues at Bank Negara Malaysia.
"They called me to place the order on Sunday and Dr Noor Hisham's birthday was on Tuesday," he said while laughing heartily.
.jpeg.aspx "Banker2baker on Instagram")
On top of the two-tiered cake, the order also included 200 cupcakes for everyone else at his office.
"I quickly discussed some ideas with my wife and daughter, and after a bit of internet browsing, I got inspired by a Superman birthday cake that I saw.
"You see, everyone portrays Dr Hisham as a hero for Malaysia so I thought instead of having a Superman logo on the chest, a Malaysian flag in the shape of a heart would do," he said.
Zulkiflee said that he initially planned to create a cake topper similar to the one that he made for Tun M's 92nd birthday (yes, this man is talented), but his wife reminded him that the health DG was a very low profile person.
"He doesn't like to steal the limelight, so we thought 'OK, we'll create something with him and other frontliners'," he said.
The actual figure of the DG was handpainted by his sister using edible colours.
"Everything had to be done fast because when producing a fondant cake, it has to be kept overnight so that it can be covered by fondant.
"Everyone on my team played a part - the baking, the flag, the drawing, the colours. Fortunately, everything turned out well," he said.
Zulkiflee said that he personally delivered the cake to the ministry's office after getting police clearance and even had the chance to speak to the DG himself.
"I was waiting in the lobby when we spotted him. I immediately went up to him, wished him a happy birthday and introduced myself.
"It was a brief conversation. I could see that he was shy and not used to all the attention. I mean, I was there with a huge cake and boxes of cupcakes!" he exclaimed.
Zero cooking knowledge
He said that he later got rave reviews for the cake and said that positive comments were still flooding their social media page."I only started this business five years ago. I was a banker, and I decided to switch careers with zero cooking knowledge.
"I mean, I'm the guy who only stepped into the kitchen if I heard a whistling kettle and had to turn the stove off," he laughed.
Zulkiflee said that baking was never on his mind.
"When I decided to retire, I just thought that I needed to start up some business and I decided on baking cakes because it did not require a huge investment.
"As soon as I decided, I went for classes and learnt everything from scratch," he said.
Stiff competition
He said that motivated by the loads of positive comments, he then went ahead with opening a cake business and to stand out from the crowd, focussed on wedding cakes with sugar flowers and fondant cakes."I also went for competitions in Tokyo, Singapore and Paris and my skills slowly developed. Now, we're steadily getting orders," he said.
Zulkiflee is being extremely modest of course, he has made more than 2,000 cakes now and has also gone on to organise a cake exhibition called 'Cake Walk' in April last year.
When asked if there was any regret to his change in career, Zulkiflee swiftly replied: "I should have done it sooner".
All the best, Zulkiflee. We can't bake for nuts so we'll just keep drooling at all your amazing creations!