Along Jalan Tambun Baru, IXiang Biscuits and Confectionery has spent more than 40 years perfecting a simple pleasure – Ma Ti Su biscuits, better known in Ipoh as Heong Peng.
Baked the old-fashioned way in clay ovens fired by coconut shells and charcoal, these palm-sized treats have become a cherished taste of home for many.
The business is currently run by 47-year-old Teoh Seng Nyap, together with his partner and brother-in-law, 54-year-old Liew Ming Foon, and Liew’s wife, Teoh Fei Looi, also 54.
To them, tradition is not a marketing line. It is daily practice.
“It’s the fragrance from the clay ovens that draws people in,” Liew told Bernama. “You can’t get that from machines.”
Inside the warm kitchen, about 120 biscuits are baked every hour. On busy days, production can reach 1,200 biscuits as regulars and curious visitors queue for the shop’s signature item.
Unlike factory-made versions, IXiang’s Heong Peng rely on little more than flour, sugar, maltose and onions. The magic lies in technique.
Teoh explained that making the biscuits requires careful preparation of two types of dough.
The “pei” dough, made from flour and water, forms the outer layer, while the “sor” dough – a blend of oil and flour – gives the pastry its flaky texture. Both must be mixed and kneaded with precision before the filling is enclosed and shaped.
The name Ma Ti Su refers to the biscuit’s distinctive horse-hoof shape. In Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur, however, most customers simply call it Heong Peng, or fragrant biscuit in Cantonese – a fitting tribute to its defining aroma. In Taiping, Penang and Johor, the original name remains more common.
Eight biscuits are sold for RM11, while individually packed versions, popular as gifts, go for RM12. When Chinese New Year approaches, demand can double, with 200 to 300 packs sold daily as hometown returnees and tourists stock up on nostalgic flavours.
Though the shop also offers crackers, chicken floss rolls, tau sar piah with peanut filling, pineapple tarts and kaya puffs, it is the Heong Peng that keeps customers coming back.
For Liew, who began learning the craft at 14, the greater challenge is not competition but continuity.
“Young people don’t want to work in the heat of the clay ovens,” he said. “It’s hard, physical work.”
Yet as long as the coconut shells continue to crackle and the clay ovens glow, IXiang’s Heong Peng will remain what they have always been – crisp, lightly sweet and infused with a fragrance that machine-made biscuits can never quite replicate.