CHOCOLATE DURIAN is baaa-ack! ;-)

After a hiatus due to the lack of quality durians, the Chocolate Durian is back on the shelves of Just Heavenly Pleasures. How do we know that the durians are good? Easy. We eat them of course! Just to taste! ;-)

Christmas Goodies

Christmas is just around the corner and for someone looking for gifts and ideas, its always a last minute rush. To help you along have a look at what we are doing :-)

Singapore Girl, getting married :-)

This couple, who worked with Singapore Airlines, obviously had tremendously loyalty to their company. They had a cake done in luggage with both of them in their uniforms.

Gerry & Madoc's Wedding

We had the great pleasure to be able to decorate Gerry & Madoc's wedding in the KL Hilton. The ballroom in the KL Hilton is ultra modern but Gerry & Madoc wanted a contemporary yet enchanted feel. We had to make sure that we also were coherent with the decor already present in the ballroom. We always try to work to a budget and using your surroundings by accentuating what you need while minimising what you don't want has ALWAYS helped us STAY WITHIN BUDGET. We've never exceeded a budget given to us. We think we achieved the look and Gerry & Madoc were happy. What do you think?

As you might have noticed, we use arrangements of different heights to create a greater sense of cosiness. Different heights also bring down a high ceiling making the guests feel like they are a greater part of things.

Some gorgeous candlestands from the Hotel. Always ask the hotel what they have. Helps to save money.

Hari Raya Gift Hampers for 2007

For full details and prices, please click here. It's that time of year. Everyone is on the lookout for yummy, unique, but gorgeous. gifts to give so that people know you've been thinking of them. It's a great cultural aspect of Malaysia which is indicative of the spirit of the season. Care, affection, giving, and generosity.

As such, Just Heavenly has been coming up with gifts annually which reflect that spirit. We feel that the message of giving doesn't get better than Home Made items. We make a majority of the items that we stuff our gift boxes/hampers with but for those that we don't, we make sure that we source it from people who do this as a home business. For one thing, it supports the smaller guy (in this age of bigger and better) and for another, we feel that home made items from recipes which are handed down through the generations better reflect the message of giving in this day and age.

Click here for the price list and details.

Our new menu and price adjustments

Allan and I always struggle with this aspect of the business. Creating new cakes are not always easy. It's like giving birth almost. You take ideas available in the market place, and then tweak them to make them uniquely Just Heavenly's and bring them to market. Having said that I paticularly enjoy the process. Part of the reason I'm in the business, I guess.

JUST HEAVENLY'S NEW ALCOHOL FREE MENU - EFFECTIVE 1 October 2007 - AND OUR CAKES WITH LIQUOR MENU

As business people, we also need to ensure the health of the company. As foodies and dessert junkies we strive to make sure that flavour of our cakes and desserts are paramount. Balancing the two through value pricing is always the name of the game.

If any of you have even glanced at the news or newspapers recently, you'll see something that we've been struggling with for some time. Rising prices.

Trust me when I say that we've endeavoured to maintain prices at present levels for a long time. Since 2005 as a matter of fact. Our current prices were established in February 2005. Before all the increases in costs that we have been barraged with. More on that later.

In the interests of maintaining that quality that you've come to expect, we've got very little choice but to adjust our prices so it's in keeping with the present reality of costs. Having said that, I still believe that our cakes are very good value for money as they balance good flavour, ingenuity, creativity, and a value price point. For example, our 9" Choc & Cheese will be adjusted from RM74 to RM82. That's an adjustment of just over 10%. Furthermore, the 9" Choc & Cheese weighs 1.5kg. Making price per kg around RM55. Still very good value for money. And frankly, an average price in our market.

Now back to rising costs.

1. Cost of fuel has gone up, gas (which is one of the mainstays of our energy useage) has gone up,
   
2. Butter which used to be RM2.50 is now around RM4 and sometimes RM5 at retail.
   
3. Flour, which, you must admit, is central to baking is almost 25% up from RM1.70 to RM2.10 (NST, 18 September 2007).
4. Milk and dairy have gone up
5. Cheese, as a consequence has also gone up as well.
6. Almonds, which used to be RM18 per kg is now around RM40.

The list goes on.

And yet, we're only adjusting our prices for WHOLE cakes by approximately 10%.

The thing is, we've never been about the "cheapest" price you could get in town. For that, I leave it to the good folks at many other bakeries who compete on THAT playing field. Instead, we've always emphasised flavour and the enjoyment that you get out of eating one of our creations. Something which is near and dear to our hearts. We want your experience with one of our creations to be one which you can recall as pleasureable.

Now, introducing 2 new menus (alcohol free menu and cakes with liquor menu) isn't just about adjusting prices. There were many reasons;

1. To introduce new cakes
2. To maintain the quality of the cakes that you have come to know and enjoy
3. To diversify our product range
4. To keep producing and creating cakes which bear the Just Heavenly idea of Serving Pleasure
5. And for our Muslim brethren, to comply with our eventual Halal status for most of our cakes. We are in the process of certifying most of our cakes Halal with a certification agent – hence, cakes with liquor will be on a separate menu. Just to be clear, we are NOT halal certified YET!
   

So friends, we hope we can still count on your support as we introduce our new menu. There's quite a few new items on there to excite your palate. And we hope you will come back to us for all your dessert and cake requirements. Enjoy!

Dora the Explorer

Yes, based on the cartoon. :-)

Anns & Stoney's Wedding In June Part 1

Ann Lee is our wedding planner and in the course of working together, she has become a very dear friend.

Ann & her love, Stoney, tied the knot in June and at her wedding dinner in Ciao's she came up with the novel idea to have a "photo booth." In effect, our wedding photographer of the night, Zung, of The Photoz set up a background and connected it up to a computer and photo printer. He then produced these gorgeous passport photos of the guests. Ann clipped one off and got the people concerned to sign on the back and kept that one for her scrap book while she gave the other 3 to her guests as a keepsake. What a lovely idea, don't you think?

We were told to be as crazy as possible. And I think we succeeded in these pics. ;-)

Map to Pleasures & Opening Hours

This map is long overdue. My apologies. It's not an excuse I know, but better late than never. Here it is now. Please CLICK it to get the larger version. :-)

After testing our opening hours for almost 3 weeks now, we've finally arrived at a closing time which we feel would be of the greatest service to all our customers.

Opening and closing times for Just Heavenly Pleasures have been finally set at;

11am to 8pm, Mondays to Saturdays, certain gazetted public holidays

This will commence from 18 July 2007. Until then we will be open till 9pm bar any emergencies.

Just Heavenly Pleasures
G1.05 & G. 1.06, Epicure
Jalan Medan Setia 1
Bukit Damansara
Kuala Lumpur

03-22879866 (our Bangsar number)

Ahoy There!

Made this one quite a few moons ago. Not a great photo but will give you an idea of what we were going for.

:-)

Baby Shower

Bearilious

I loved this one. Teddy Bears. And a combination American tier and British tier.

The Official Launch of Just Heavenly Pleasures

It's been a fun and exciting year. So much has happened.

With the tagline "Serving Pleasure" Just Heavenly Pleasures was launched on 23 June 2007.

It is with a cup overflowing with gratitude to family and friends and a mixture of relief and gratification that accompanied the AFTERMATH of the day. About 100 people attended the event which was held in the foyer of Epicure in front of Chef & Brew.

Chef & Brew were very supportive and basically they gave us a menu and coffee & tea which complemented our desserts.

The day started as days like these do; in a rush. Aunty Yong, Allan's aunty who runs Croppes, and who is now officially our business partner, along with her elder sister Aunty Bee, more familiar to us as Allan's Mum, or just plain Mum, came along to help with set up.

Our new girl Babes was also in attendance and methinks she was quite exhausted at the end of the day. And rightly so. Without her, our counter would not have run as smoothly. We are thankful to her.

Key Lime Tarts were a hot favourite and we are trying to find a way to bring that to market. It is always a matter of taking the time to test out everything about a dessert or cake before we put it on the shelf. Most important is taste of course but after that there are a whole host of practical concerns, like shelf life, look, and texture. "Pleasure" can be a lot of hard work! ;-)

Something that always moves very quickly off the shelves is our profiteroles. A twist on Cream puffs. Instead of plain sweetened cream, we use an enriched vanilla custard for the filling. And it's always filled to bursting.

Besides cakes and desserts we are also selling flowers in the form of hand bouquets and arrangements. For more elaborate arrangements, you can call us to arrange for delivery.

We also have jams, cookies, and gifts. Corporate or personal. For any occasion. And especially for the festive season; Deepavali, Raya, Christmas and Chinese New Year.

Allan and I are also very grateful and thankful to our boys and girls who work very hard in the kitchen to produce everything we ask of them. They are supportive, loyal, and never shirk. We are very, very fortunate to have all of them on board. Thank you (in alphabetical order) Albert, Babes, Kak Kris, Kok Wai, Shin Yei, Swee San, and last but certainly not least, Yoke Mun.


Just Heavenly Pleasures
G1.05 & G. 1.06 Epicure
Jalan Medan Setia 1
Bukit Damansara
Kuala Lumpur

03-22879866 (our Bangsar number)

Opening times; 11am till 9pm (from 23rd June till further notice - we are presently testing those hours until mid July when a reassessment will take place to ensure that these are commercially viable times for that area. We hope all of you will bear with us while we work this out. Thanks so much in anticipation of your understanding).