Royal Order

(Sunday: July 22, 2007)

A telephone call from the palace has cupcake entrepreneurs Inn and Eon in seventh heaven.

IT has been a frenzied week for “cupcake” sisters, Seri Ervienawaty (Inn) and Seri Emelliawaty (Eon) since they were featured in Sunday Metro last week.
Besides getting several hundreds of calls and similar number of SMSes, plus more than 7,000 hits on their website, they even secured an order from the palace.
“We were both still in our pyjamas when we received the call from Her Majesty’s lady-in-waiting at 9am,” said Inn.
Sweet delights: Eon(left) and Inn showing off the cupcakes that they sent to the Permaisuri Agong last Sunday. “I was still a little dazed at the time because I just woke up and it didn’t register in my head that it was someone from the palace,” laughed Eon, adding that she thought she had heard wrong.
She even had to ask the person on the line to repeat herself and, without thinking, Eon started to talk about the cupcakes and how much they cost.
“I was shocked to my bones when I learned that she was really calling on behalf of the Raja Permaisuri Agong and at that instant, my heart started beating very fast and I jumped up and down to calm my nerves,” laughed Eon.
The entire house was filled with screams after Eon got off the phone and informed her other family members that the Raja Permaisuri Agong had read the article and ordered a batch of cupcakes to be sent to the palace.
“The lady-in-waiting asked if we could send the cupcakes immediately, but since we just woke up and we were running short of supplies, we asked if we could send it later,” said Inn.
“Fortunately, she said that we could send it at dinner time instead, and that’s when everything started to really go crazy,” she recalled.
To start, their oven can only fit in about 20 cupcakes at one time, and the mixing machine can only accommodate about 12 cupcake recipes.
The phone didn’t stop ringing the entire day as there were many calls coming in to secure orders for as many as 1,000 cupcakes per serving.
“We even received a call from someone in London. She wanted us to cater for her wedding when she comes back this December,” she said.
Currently, both the sisters are fully booked for the rest of the month and the whole of August.
They have received enquiries from Singapore and Australia for events like weddings, birthday bashes, parties, corporate functions, Christmas celebration as well as the Raya celebration.
“This is a fairy tale come true. Who would have thought that by baking simple cupcakes we could attract so many people?” said Inn, apparently still shocked over the interest shown.
“The first thing we will do after this is to get a much bigger oven and a bigger mixing machine!” cried Eon.