Buns baked in century-old oven draw queues in Slim River

The Star

26-05-2025

AN appetising aroma permeates the air as one nears a shophouse along Jalan Masjid Lama in the Perak town of Slim River.
Customers queue up outside the shop to buy buns and bread rolls before they sell out.
Kilang Roti Mokhtar's array of products are baked in an age-old brick oven fuelled by firewood and coconut shells.
The soft, sweet buns with a subtle smoky aroma keep customers coming back for more.
The family-run business has been going on since 1949.
Today, it is run by Mokhtar Ahmad Mohamad Taqi, 62, who inherited the bakery from his late father Mohammad Taqi Habib and preserved the original recipes and baking techniques.
'Perhaps the use of the traditional oven is the secret to why our bread products continue to be in high demand, even with competition,' he told Bernama.
Mokhtar begins his day early in the morning by preparing the dough before lighting the traditional oven.
He said the bakery was purchased in 1949 by his father's older brother Abdul Kadir Habib who had migrated to Malaya from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India.
After Abdul Kadir passed away, Mokhtar's father took over the business.
'I don't know the exact age of this oven.
'The elders said this bakery was first run by someone else who had been baking bread since around 1912.
'This oven was already here when my uncle bought the bakery,' recalls Mokhtar.
The father of seven said he had never made any modification to the oven, only repairing it when necessary.
Standing at 1.8m high and 4.5m wide, the oven can hold six to eight trays of buns.
This means an output of about 400 buns from one session.
'It usually takes about 20 minutes for the buns to be perfectly done,' he said, explaining that traditionally baked bread products tended to be softer and more fragrant than those from modern ovens.
Mokhtar, who was 21 when he first helped his father run the bakery, also avoids using preservatives.
Instead, he relies on basic ingredients like wheat flour, margarine, sugar and yeast.
To make 450 buns, he uses one sack of flour, 2kg of margarine, 4kg of sugar and 200g of yeast.
The entire process of preparing and kneading the dough and then baking takes at least six hours.
His wife Norhasimah Amir, 57, and two of his sons Muhammad Amar Haikal, 36, and Muhammad Adib Idzhar, 18, assist with the bakery operations.
Remembering when his father ran the business, Mokhtar said the bakery had produced only roti Benggali.
Also known as roti Babu, this is a type of white loaf sold mainly by Indian Muslim bread vendors in Malaysia.
His father would cycle to nearby villages to sell the bread but once, due to illness, Mokthar was put up to the task.
However, he could not sell a single loaf.
'I was confused why no one wanted to buy bread from me.
'When I got home, my father explained that I had been cycling too fast and the villagers didn't even have a chance to call me over.
'It turned out he would only push the bicycle, not ride it, whenever he went out to sell bread,' Mokhtar recalled with a chuckle.
These days, Roti Benggali is only made at Kilang Roti Mokhtar upon request, as the bread requires a longer baking time.
Instead, the bakery focuses on producing buns with coconut, kaya, red bean paste and cream fillings.
It also makes sesame rolls, hard rolls and plain rolls.
The kaya, coconut and red bean buns are sold from around 11am each day, followed by sesame rolls at around noon.
Cream and plain buns and hard rolls are sold later in the day.
Prices range from RM1 for each bun with a filling to RM7 for a pack of 10 hard rolls.
Mokhtar admitted that the rising cost of raw ingredients had forced him to raise prices.
'In 2016, we could still sell our buns for 20sen, 40sen or RM1.40 depending on the type.
'Still, they remain affordable,' he said.
The bakery also managed to survive challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
'Demand was high, so I started taking orders and delivering the buns directly to customers.'
Looking ahead, Mokhtar said his sons Amar and Adib had shown interest in continuing the family legacy.
'They are helping me run the business and I hope they will carry on our family tradition.'
Kilang Roti Mokhtar operates daily except Fridays.