The UrbanWire

It began life as a small shop on 21 Upper East Coast Road with a full repertoire of just 5 different types of bread and hardly enough stock to fill the shelves with. Today, it is a 15-strong chain of cafés specialising in organic breads and pastries that are freshly hand made every day.

A finance executive of 11 years turned self taught baker, Yeap Cheng Guat, 46, is the proud owner and founder of café chain Cedele.

From humble beginnings at the initial store in Upper East Coast, which she terms a “test shop”, where she experimented with and refined her different bread recipes, the Cedele chain has since expanded its menu to include an eclectic mix of confectioneries, breads, soups, and entrées.

Au Naturale

Her cooking philosophy is derived from Ayurvedic principles – an Indian system of holistic medicine that emphasises balance. There should be a balance in the six tastes – sweet, bitter, salty, pungent, astringent and sour, maintains Yeap Cheng, if you cannot include all six tastes in a dish, you must at least have 4-5 of them. Simplicity is key, and overloading the palate with a plethora of flavours is a definite no-no in her book.

She believes that food makers have a big responsibility to ensure that food is made right and customers’ needs comes first. “The hand that shapes the future, the hand that shapes people’s health.” She says, which embodies the main philosophy of Cedele - “Eat Well, Be Well”. In accordance with that philosophy, all gastronomic delights on Cedele’s menu are made fresh daily with organic ingredients.

Cedele has long used butter in lieu of margarine in their dishes.

I read an article in the Wall Street magazine that talked about a study which found some negative impacts that margarine could have on a person’s health about 12 years ago – before I opened the restaurant, says the self-taught baker, so the press thought I was crazy when I announced that I only use butter in my cooking, because at that time, margarine was considered healthy.

It turned out to be a well foresighted vision, when margarine was revealed as one of the prime sources of trans fats.

Humble Beginnings

There was a Swiss bakery near to our shop owned by an executive chef, recalls Yeap Cheng Guat, 46, the proud owner of the now well established café chain, and we would freely give him breads that weren’t very well done for his comments. And one day, after several improvements, he came to my shop and said “Cheng, you can start selling them now‘, and with gloved hands, proceeded to personally place the breads on the shelf.”

Self-taught and schooled in the culinary arts in the sweltering kitchens of the local Baking Industry Training Centre (BITC) and her own, Ms Yeap Cheng has encountered her fair share of sceptics.

“You know, I still remember the first week I opened, a person came up to me and asked, ‘where’s the cert?’, she reminisces, “I trained in a local school, and most of my training in my own kitchen, but the test is in the pudding.”

At 11 years running, 15 outlets-strong and 1 more store in the works, then Cedele has definitely passed the test with flying colours.

So what’s her secret ingredient?

The UrbanWire sat down at the coffee table to find out.

The UrbanWire: When did your interest in baking develop?

Yeap Cheng Guat: I’ve been baking since I was 8, 9 or 10 years old. I’ve always baked because I come from the northern part of Taiping, Malaysia, so where I come from there was no bakery. And I have always liked to eat cakes and stuff like that. We only had one bakery and the bakery never sold any cake, just bread. So if you wanted to eat cake or cookies, you had to bake them yourself.

Every so often, during the school holidays and also Chinese New Year, my mother and my grandmother would bake. And I would be the first one to put up my hand to help line pans and to separate the eggs to bake and all that. So I’ve always taken up this challenge and I love to bake. And after awhile when I was a little older, I told my mom, I will take over the baking and bake for my aunt as well. My aunt would always rear some chickens in her house and the chickens would lay a lot of eggs – fresh eggs, because my aunt believes that if you bake your cake with the fresh eggs just laid, the cake would taste really good and fresh.

UW: You were formerly from the corporate sector. What triggered your career switch to baking and eventually opening a café chain specialising in breads and organic foods?

YCG: During my time, growing up in the 70s, late 70s, 80s the thing to do is the norm and I come from a small town. You need to get a job, receive a tertiary education – that’s really important, make sure you go university, then your life would not be screwed up and third, do something safe, like accountancy, And I was really good in accounting. I went into business school in the US. And then pursued a degree in finance. After a little while, I felt that I was not really going anywhere, because wanted to do something creative. So after working about 3 years in Malaysia, I left to pursue my MBA, which I applied and had got scholarship for and went on to do my MBA in finance again, because my ideology was that, ‘ok, if I don’t really like the working world, maybe I will pursue the academic.’ Because I am an avid and I like to teach as well. So I thought maybe I should pursue an academic career.

That’s when I met a few professors in the consumer goods business. It was really fascinating to understand from people from consumer goods how businesses were built. During my stay in the US, I had an Italian friend teach me how to make ciabatta bread, who I also taught how to make spring rolls in return. So after I graduated, I went into consumer goods for a while and took up some baking classes, to improve on my bread making skills.

UW: How do you measure success?

YCG: We measure success by how many happy people we have made, the happy birthdays that we have made, by the repeat customers we get. We measure success by the satisfaction we get from people, and I’ll know this when my customers come back.

The cost of running the business is very high. So this is an area that I have to put my corporate hand in to manage our system but yet, not disturbing the quality of the food. Its not the money, in fact I don’t really pay attention to like what is our sales top line - we don’t short-change our customers.

UW: How would you describe the initial few months following the opening of your first outlet?

YCG: The fact that the hours were long, the work that needs to be done and also because I need to do the testing myself, demanded that I needed somebody to produce the food as well. So that was trying. But it wasn’t like a trying like ‘wah so jia lat (exhausting)!’ I actually quite enjoyed it. I’d tell my customer ‘my bread is not ready, come at 5 o’ clock’ and at 5 o’ clock I’ll still be baking bread.

Now, we are so organised, but the early years after the press got to know about us, my shop would be sold out. I usually don’t make enough food, So, I had to make more food and that’s when it gets a bit stressed. Working with people from the trade who came to work under me, who are not very literate, training them to work the way I want it to be done was very challenging. Because they are not used to reading recipe process cards,. I’m your classic person who needs to document procedures, this was also because I was trained in AT&T. I thought, “must document everything, process, number one, number two, number three.” But they (my employees) are not used to it and they get very intimidated, so they leave me, and then I have to train again and after awhile I got fed up. Like any other person who starts afresh in a business you think to start a bakery, you hire a baker. You put up an ad, to hire the baker. That’s wrong, you know. You just need to hire people with the right attitude, with the same chemistry. So that was my challenge, working with the different people of different temperaments who came and helped me.

UW: Do you have a signature dish that you serve up every time you host a party?

YCG: My signature dish in my house parties is now served in my restaurant - the Rose Pasta Laksa. Because it is easy I can make it in advance and then of course my salad. The salad I always like to serve is the kerabu, because it is easy, you just take shrimp, steam the shrimp, Shallots, cucumbers, a lot of lime to make the dressing for it, and then tomato, and then you mix them all together so that it becomes saucy and sour and you make them. And I always like to put olive oil or a little bit of grapeseed oil. The original recipe doesn’t have it but I always put a little bit to moisten it.

But I now change how I cook and then I will serve them with lettuce so that my guest can always wrap and eat them. You can put some other meat inside and stuff like that. And another one of my recent dishes that I cook now is the duck. I cook a duck dish that is very simple to do - you take the duck out and just boil the duck with the spices and very good soya sauce. Then you peel all the fat off and leave just the lean meat. Then you eat them with lettuce, basil and mint and a very good chilli sauce. Using fresh chilli, you meld them with garlic, little bit of onions - roasted onions, shallots that you roast in the oven, and lime.

UW: Your café chain has since come a long way from its creation in 1997 and grown to encompass 15 outlets, what’s your secret ingredient?

YCG: Actually, it’s no secret. Stay interested to my customer needs and what is relevant. Really there’s no secret. My business changes and so does my menu. It’s the same thing that people like, except that I tweak it, so that our food will stay relevant. Like last time, I used make the bread bigger, but I’m going to change my bread to a smaller size now because the people cannot finish it. The secret is just this - understanding the customer, and working with people who are passionate.