'Nian gao' is property agent's best asset

This time of year, the property agent swaps the pens and the contracts for moulds and steamers to make nian gao.

His sticky rice cake is in demand locally and in Singapore.

The 43-year-old father of three has been making nian gao every year for the last 10 years.

He learnt how to do it while working at a Chinese-owned nian gao manufacturing factory back in the 1980s.

When the factory shut down, Balamurali became a property agent as nain gao is only popular during the Chinese festive season.

The traditional item, made of glutinous rice flour, syrup and brown sugar, is offered to the Kitchen God at this time of the year.

Folklore has it that a week before the Lunar New Year, the Kitchen God returns to heaven to with the year's report of the family's good and bad deeds to the Jade Emperor.

The Chinese community hence offers the nian gao to the Kitchen God's so that he would not be able to talk with his mouth full of sticky rice.

Customers have a choice of nian gao made using plastic-lined moulds or the traditional and pricier banana leaf-lined  mould. 

The moulds are placed inside a giant steamer.

Balamurali, who runs his business from NYCC Enterprise at 70, Jalan Bakawali 52 in Taman Johor Jaya, sells the cakes at between RM3.20 and RM8.50 each.

With the help of 30 part-time workers, Balamurali produces over 1,500 cakes a day.