Upcoming Chinese New Year: Yogyakarta, Central Java

If there is one festivity I enjoy then it is Chinese New Year and especially in Yogyakarta. Being married to a Chinese-Indonesian, I get to go to all the parties and festivities around town. My favourite time is indulging in kue krangjang, a sweet made of ketan rice and sugar, and moon cakes.

But, it wasn’t always enjoyable at Chinese New Year in Indonesia. I lived in Yogyakarta through the Soeharto years and any celebrations were generally done behind the walls of the house and quietly. But since his demise, Imlek (Chinese New Year) is openly celebrated with Barongsai troupes performing in the streets and at temples as well as street parades.

As with all festivals around Indonesia, food and the devouring of it play a big part and one of the favourites of the Chinese are moon cakes. It is a time when bakers in Yogyakarta are at their busiest as Slamet Susanto explains:

Yogya Baker Shoots for the Moon

With Chinese New Year fast approaching, bakeries in Yogyakarta are buzzing with activity as they rush to fill orders for moon cakes.

Baker Sulistiyowati said orders had been coming in from cities throughout Central Java, including Magelang and Wonosobo.

“Customers have been placing orders for the past week. We can use up to 400 kg of rice flour a day. The orders usually peak two or three days before the celebration,” said the 63-year-old.

She said moon cakes were an important part of Chinese New Year, as they were a symbol of kinship and only eaten during the celebration period.

She said they were the equivalent of the opor (chicken cooked in coconut milk) and ketupat (rice cooked in a coconut leaf casing) that Muslims ate at Idul Fitri.

Over the past week, Sulistiyowati’s bakery has been focusing on producing moon cakes. She employs 10 people. Each day they can produce up to 1,600 small cakes, using 400 kg of palm sugar.

The cakes sell for Rp 7,000 (US$0.7) a piece, while a pack of three costs Rp 20,000 and large cakes can be specially ordered for Rp 75,000.

“Prices have risen now, compared to last year when I sold the small cakes for Rp 5,000 each. The price of rice flour has risen two-fold from Rp 5,000 last year to Rp 10,000 now,” said Sulistiyowati.

The sweet round cakes are distinctive and can last up to a month without going stale.

The cakes’ longevity is thanks to the lengthy cooking process. Equal amounts of glutinous rice flour and palm sugar are cooked into a coagulated mixture, which is then left to settle for a day until it hardens. Then it is steamed for precisely eight hours. During this process it must not be touched.

“It will be too hard if it’s steamed for more than eight hours and it cannot last long if it’s steamed less than that,” said Sulistiyowati.

After the steaming process, the mixture is shaped into size and left aside for half a day to firm up, before being packaged in boxes decorated with Chinese lanterns.

“The process is tedious. It takes at least two days to make moon cakes,” said an employee.

Making moon cakes for Chinese New Year has been a tradition passed down through the generations in Sulistiyowati’s family.

She has been running the business — opened by her father Siauw Boen Tyhauw in the 1930s — since the 1970s.
The rest of the year she makes bak cang and mangkok cakes.

Slamet Susanto