Kak Ina bakes it right

“I would like to bake my cookies on a larger scale”

Every year for the past 20 years, Musinah Jamal has been baking and selling her cookies during the Ramadan season.  She would rent a space in a mall for festive shoppers to buy a range of her homemade cookies.  After the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) this year, she noticed a slower pace in shopping for cookies but remains confident that business will pick up by the third week of Ramadan.

Musinah, better known as Kak Ina, started baking at the tender age of twelve.  Looking back, she recalls with a laugh, her first foray into baking, not just one type but a variety of ten types of cookies.  She forgot to add baking powder to her recipes and they turned out rock hard and quite inedible!

She certainly learnt to bake the hard way.  But since then Kak Ina has got her recipes right and come up with a range of delicious cookies to sell during the festive season. 

Kak Ina, a single mother for the last 22 years, has the added advantage of speaking fluent English.  Besides baking for her business, she held various jobs from office work, selling insurance to distributing library books, to earn a steady income to bring up her three children.

She has the far-sightedness to conduct a survey of the light industrial areas around Kulaijaya and is challenged to start her own business in producing baked cookies not only for the local market but also for export.  With a good rapport with her neighbours and fellow villagers, she has devised a plan to work in cooperation with them to bake cookies in a large scale production.  

Armed with her command of the English language and a healthy dose of tenacity, Kak Ina is also confident that she will achieve her aim in exporting her baked goods.