#TrendSing: Rise of the one-trick bakers

There’s something great, even romantic, about picking a favourite — in remaining faithful and devoting your affections to one.

Don’t get us wrong, we applaud jacks of all trades, but we think that there’s something deeply authentic about culinary monogamists. It takes dedication and extreme passion to breathe, sweat, cry, bleed, eat, and master only one food — plus points if it’s dessert.

So you can imagine our delight when, over the past year, more and more one-trick or specialty bakers started opening up and expanding in Singapore.

Ahead of the Game

Some of these folks have been around awhile, which just goes to show that many locals echo our sentiments about single bakes. For example, even though the cupcake hype has long since fizzled out, we still find it hard to outgrow them, especially when excellent bakers such as the folks behind Plain Vanilla Bakery (1D Yong Saik St., 8299-9422) exist. They just get the basics so right. These mini cakes (from $3.50 each) are made from a super-moist sponge cake and are crowned with various flavourful yet light frostings. The bestsellers like Chocolate Hazelnut, Red Velvet, and Carrot have earned a permanent spot on the menu. But navigate over to their Facebook page to keep an eye out for seasonal specials. That White Chocolate Peppermint from last Christmas was stellar!

Read Also: 8 unusual cupcake flavours you can get in Singapore

Another ‘old-timer’ is Windowsill Pies (78 Horne Rd., 9004-7827). You should already know this by now, but they’ve got a stand-alone shop just a stone’s throw from Chye Seng Huat Hardware (remember that the next time you’re cafe hopping), which showcases their awesome spread of saccharine pies. Starting from $63 for a full pie, there are classic goodies like cherry pie and pecan pie. But they’ve also created jazzed up ones like Coconut Lime Vodka pie, Grasshopper (chocolate and mint) pie, and the all-American S’mores pie.

Fresh Out of the Oven

And then there are the bakes that other countries have adopted as primary dessert, but we haven’t. Like cinnamon buns. These (and pies) are classics in every western baker’s kitchen. The cinnamon bun craze landed in Singapore many years ago, but jetted out shortly after. Star Cinnamon (#B1-K2, 200 Victoria St., 6883-1033) is trying to bring them back by altering the classic recipe to suit local tastes. The bread fluffy and light, unlike the usual firm, dense buns we’re used to (heh). What sets these guys apart is that they’ve applied a doughnut-topping philosophy to their buns, which start at $2 each. Original cinnamon buns don’t quite cut it here, so the sweetened cream cheese topping is torched until it’s golden brown. But if you’re gonna go for these buns, you might as well try a few of their over-the-top creations such as Peanut Butter Jelly, Banana Bonanza, and Hazelnut Caramel. Just pace yourself — there are over 20 flavours to choose from.

Another local entry — and we’re really excited about this one — is Sarah Tan and Michelle Looi’s L’Eclair by Sarah Michelle.

“Michelle and I graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris about a year ago and that was where we really fell in love with eclairs,” Tan told Coconuts Singapore. “The concept isn’t new — many American and European cities have eclair shops and the trend is already trickling down to the Southeast Asian region. We felt it was about time someone introduced it to Singapore.”

And not only did they bring the luxurious French pastry to Singapore, they also took it to the next level. You won’t get soggy, overly sweet, messy eclairs here. Their flavours are thoughtful and perfectly balanced and the texture is light, creamy, and crispy where needed. There are currently nine flavours, but must-tries include the Lemon Meringue, Ispahan (rose, lychee, and fresh raspberries), and Hazelnut Praline (hazelnut cream and whole hazelnuts). L’Eclair will have their first brick-and-mortar store in 2015, but in the meantime, you can get your hands on their products via their website.

Cat and the Fiddle also take to the web to sell their sweets. These bakers specialise in amazing cheesecakes (from $19.90 for a seven-inch cake). The go-to classics are covered but are creatively named (Oreo cheesecake is called A Modern Duke’s Pudding here). But what we admire is this company’s knack for infusing booze into their cakes. You don’t have to wait until cocktail hour to try the Caribbean Surfari (Malibu with coconut, pineapple), The Emperor’s Romance (Martini with lychee), or the Sicilian Wild Cats (Brandy, Rum, Marsala, coffee, lady fingers, and mascarpone).

Pumping a little testosterone into the baking scene (finally!) is Two Men Bagel House (#01-12, 16 Enggor St., Icon Village Altez, 6509-4125). The brainchild of two Singaporean men barely even 25, these bagels (from $3.60 each) are hand-rolled and made in-house and come in a few varieties: plain, sesame seed, cinnamon and raisin, onion, and rye. Dirty up your bread with luscious fillings. Try the classic Lox (cured salmon, cream cheese, onions, dill, and capers) and the Rodeo (roast beef, capsicum relish, Swiss cheese, onions, and honey mustard). If that’s a little too much for your palate, spreads like like nutella with pecan, pandan kaya with butter, and salmon dill cream cheese, are available too.

Specialty bakers are coming in from other shores too – who can forget Laduree mania just a short time ago? Brit purveyor of cookies with a cult following, Ben’s Cookies (#B1-50, 425 Orchard Rd., Wisma Atria, 6235-5340; top pic), recently landed in Singapore and created a mini hysteria of its own. Priced from $2.95 each, these cookies are soft, chewy, and have a good rise to them. They say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. So time-tested classic combos like Milk Chocolate and Orange, White Chocolate and Macadamia, and Double Chocolate Chunk are what it’s all about here.

Only you

So why just one? Why not specialise in something, but still provide a variety, like Henri Charpentier or Tiong Bahru Bakery? And isn’t it hard to be loyal to just one?

“It can be hard!” said Tan and Looi in a joint interview. “We’re trained in a wide range of other sweet pastries and have a passion for baking in general, so yes, there are days when we’d wish we were baking an entremet cake instead of eclairs.”

Despite that, eclairs are still what the two women want to focus on: “There’s still a lot of room for improvement and so many flavours we want to experiment with. One of the advantages of a single bake is that you get to improve on the recipe, methods, flavours and textures. And eventually, you’ll be able to do it faster.”

Read Also: Coconuts Hot Spot: Fancy sipping on toffee and plum coffee in a cleanroom?

But the biggest advantage for L’Eclair is of course, business related.

“It makes more economic sense. Some types of products, like French pastries, can involve so many sub-recipes (think of all those glorious cake layers!) and intricate details. If you’re doing a multi-concept pastry store where you’re selling just 10 to 20 pieces of each type of pastry every day, there can actually be a lot of wastage, problems with meeting your supplier’s minimum order quantity for very specific ingredients and storage constraints.”

For the two men of Two Men Bagel House though, the need was greater than the finesse. Jerome and Jereborne Lam started the business because they were big fans that literally couldn’t get enough of the pastry.

“We could hardly get bagels before, maybe because Singaporeans weren’t that fond of them. But we’ve noticed more and more are warming up to the idea — we just need to give some of them time to adapt to the texture of the bagel bread.”

“This is definitely one of the challenges of the single bake: providing for individual tastes.”

And L’Eclair agrees: “There will be people that won’t like your product enough to keep coming for it. If your singular concept turns out to be a fad that eventually dies, you might get stuck. You need to be quick enough to evolve your business concept.”

Story: Hidayah Salamat & Marisse Gabrielle Reyes

Read Also:

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