Baking’s not a piece of cake now

Feeling the pinch: Khoo (right), who is guiding pastry chef Poh Gim Tat on the art of drawing lines with cream on a gluten-free chocolate cake, says cheaper ingredients just won’t do. — KT GOH/The Star

GEORGE TOWN: Chief baker Khoo Kay Poh needs hundreds of Grade A washed eggs each day and several 25kg tubs of butter every week to bake the dozens of cakes he sells in Pulau Tikus.

The eggs used to cost just over 40 sen each but are now priced at more than 60 sen while the tubs of butter have gone up from RM300 before the pandemic to RM900 now.