Shangri-La Hotel prepares 300 kilogram Ramadhan cake
By Dini S. Djalal
JAKARTA (JP): It is often said that you can't have your cake and eat it too, but for the fasting month, the Shangri-La Hotel means every word of the cliche.
In celebration of the month of Ramadhan, the Shangri-La's kitchen staff spent 24 days creating a 3 by 4 meter wide, 300 kilogram cake made of Australian vegetable butter. And all those gooey chunks of fat have been expertly molded in the shape of Jakarta's world-famous Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia.
A wooden frame lies under the dome and minaret to prevent them from oozing to the ground. The entire cake is polished with ice in order to make it look smoother and shinier.
There is also a light bulb inside this miniature version of the sacred sanctuary, shrouding the monument with a supernatural glow.
What the mini mosque doesn't have is a supernatural taste.
"It's completely inedible. The cake is made of purely decorative butter," said Romy Herlambang, the hotel's public relations officer.
The cake may be purely decorative, but it needs constant attention. "It's really soft. Every time you touch it, it loses some of its shape, and then you have to add more butter," said Darma, one of the four artists involved in shaping the cake. A task force has been assigned to monitor the cake daily, and to "touch up" parts that are melting. "Everything has been prepared and planned. We know what we're doing," said chef Torry.
The purpose of concocting this imposing structure, which will remain in the hotel lobby throughout the whole fasting month, is "for the Shangri-La to contribute something to the people," said Romy.
She notes that the hotel has held similar events in the past, such as building a mosque made of chocolate and sugar, in order to pay respect to Indonesia's many monuments and communities.
Yet those other mountains of ingredients weren't edible either. When asked why they didn't make a cake that people could eat, the resident manager, Cetin Sekercioglu, shrugged in search of the appropriately sensitive words. Finally, he said: "Well, we made sure that it would not be edible, because I don't think people would feel right about eating a piece of a mosque."