Union Brasserie, Bakery & Bar
Union’s blend of classy décor, delish food and a great location have made it one of Jakarta’s hippest spots to see and be seen. Although it’s one of the city’s trendiest nightlife venues, it might be even more famous for its Red Velvet Cake. Created by Chef Karen Carlotta, the mastermind behind Union Bakery, the Red Velvet Cake here sells out fast every single day, and for good reason. The cake is incredibly moist, the cream cheese frosting has the perfect level of sweetness and the crunch of caramelised peanuts, an ingeniously innovative addition to the recipe by Chef Carlotta, makes each bite of this brilliant cake quite memorable. Union’s Red Velvet Cake is also served up in humongous slices that can easily be shared if you can bear to give any up. (www.unionjkt.com)
Chef Story: Karen Carlotta
“In 2011, the year Union opened in Plaza Senayan, red velvet cakes were starting to become really popular in New York. I was travelling there at the time and I saw the red velvet trend gaining momentum. Since we were in the middle of coming up with the brasserie concept for Union, we decided to make it into an American style brasserie. Therefore, we decided to add red velvet cake to our menu.
It took me about three weeks to adjust the original recipe into the cake that we have now. I added crunchy caramelized peanut to the original recipe to give it a bit of a personal touch. After Union popularised this cake and it sold very well, restaurants all over Indonesia started making red velvet cake with caramelized peanut also. But, in my opinion, we are the trendsetter and pioneer. Many people say that they love my Red Velvet Cake because of the texture and the lightness of the cake, which is similar to the classic American style. The most memorable thing that I’ve heard about our cake is that customers like it so much that some of them even bring it to Singapore and even to the United States, which is where the cake originally came from.”
