Top 20 'Counter-to-Kitchen' Cafes to Cook Their Signature Bakes in Singapore for Aspiring Home Patissiers
Ever peered into a gleaming cafe display, mesmerised by a perfectly laminated croissant or a slice of cake with impossibly smooth frosting, and thought, “I wish I could make that”? That fleeting thought is the spark for every aspiring home patissier. It’s a desire not just to consume, but to create; to understand the magic that turns flour, butter, and sugar into a moment of pure joy.
But where do you start? A cookbook can teach you technique, but true inspiration often comes from tasting the finished product. That’s where this list comes in. We’re going beyond the usual "best cafes" guide. Welcome to the 'Counter-to-Kitchen' list—a curated tour of 20 Singaporean cafes whose signature bakes are not just delicious, but are also fantastic case studies for your own baking adventures.
Think of your next cafe-hopping trip as delicious research and development. Each scone, tart, and cookie holds a lesson in texture, flavour balance, or presentation. We’ll break down what makes each bake special and give you the key takeaway to bring back to your own kitchen. So grab your coffee, sharpen your palate, and let’s turn inspiration into creation.
1. Tiong Bahru Bakery: The Kouign Amann
No list of Singaporean bakes is complete without Tiong Bahru Bakery. While their croissants are legendary, the bake to study here is the Kouign Amann. This Breton pastry is a mesmerising swirl of buttery, laminated dough, caramelised to a crunchy, almost-burnt perfection on the outside while remaining tender within.
Tasting it is an education in itself. Notice the distinct layers and the deep, complex flavour of the caramelised sugar. It’s not just sweet; it has a hint of bitterness that balances the rich butter. This is lamination and sugar work at its peak, a true test of a baker's patience and precision.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Don’t be afraid of caramelisation. Many home bakers pull their pastries out too early, fearing a burnt taste. The TBB Kouign Amann teaches you that taking sugar to the brink of burning is where the magic happens, creating a depth of flavour you can't get otherwise. When you bake anything with a caramel element, push it a little further than you think you should.
2. Plain Vanilla Bakery: The Classic Cupcake
In a world of overly-sweet, gritty frosting, Plain Vanilla is a beacon of cupcake perfection. Their bakes are consistently moist, and the frosting is light, smooth, and perfectly balanced. The Red Velvet or a simple Dark Chocolate Ganache are excellent starting points for your "research."
Pay attention to the crumb of the cake—it's tender and fine, not coarse or dry. Then, analyse the frosting. It's not just a sugar bomb; it's a key flavour component. The cream cheese frosting on their Red Velvet has a distinct tang that cuts through the richness, a masterclass in flavour balancing.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Master the fundamentals of frosting. Learn how to make a proper Swiss or Italian meringue buttercream for a silky-smooth, less-sweet finish. For cream cheese frosting, ensure your butter and cream cheese are at the exact same cool room temperature to avoid a lumpy texture. Plain Vanilla proves that a flawless execution of a simple classic is often more impressive than a complicated new creation.
3. Keong Saik Bakery: The Burnt Cheesecake
Keong Saik Bakery offers a delightful blend of contemporary bakes with a local twist. Their Basque Burnt Cheesecake is a must-try and a fantastic project for home bakers. It defies all traditional cheesecake rules: it's crustless, baked at a high temperature to achieve that signature scorched top, and has a custardy, almost-liquid centre.
What makes theirs stand out is the texture. The outside is firm with a beautiful caramelised bitterness, while the inside is gloriously creamy and soft. They also offer versions like the "Two-Face" (Original & Matcha) which shows how versatile this base recipe can be.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Embrace imperfection and high heat. The burnt cheesecake is forgiving and rustic. The key lesson here is temperature control. A very hot oven is essential for that burnt exterior while keeping the interior soft. Also, learn that a "cracked" or "uneven" surface can be a hallmark of a delicious, rustic bake.
4. Mother Dough Bakery: The Almond Croissant
This Halal-certified, artisanal bakery on the vibrant North Bridge Road is a haven for sourdough and pastry lovers. While their plain sourdough is a testament to fermentation, the Almond Croissant is the one to deconstruct for home-baking wisdom.
It’s a masterclass in upcycling. A great almond croissant gives a day-old croissant a spectacular second life. Notice how it's filled with a generous amount of rich, nutty frangipane, topped with flaked almonds, and baked again until golden. The result is a pastry that’s both crunchy and custardy.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Waste nothing and master frangipane. Frangipane—a simple mix of almond flour, butter, sugar, and eggs—is a secret weapon. You can use it to fill tarts, croissants, or even spread it on toast before baking. Mother Dough teaches us that some of the best creations come from resourcefulness.
5. Bakery Brera & Fine Foods: The Cruffin
Nestled in the Empress Market neighbourhood, Bakery Brera is beloved for its generous, unpretentious bakes. Their Cruffins (a croissant-muffin hybrid) are a textural delight and a brilliant study in lamination and filling.
The magic is in the structure. It has the flaky, buttery layers of a croissant but is baked in a muffin tin, giving it a unique shape and a soft interior. The fillings, from Peanut Butter & Jelly to Lemon Curd, are always piped in generously after baking.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: The art of the filling. This bake teaches you about flavour contrast and containment. The crisp, buttery pastry is a vessel for a smooth, often tangy or sweet, filling. For home bakers, this means mastering piping skills and learning to make stable fillings like curds, custards, and ganaches that won't make your pastry soggy.
6. LUNA Patisserie: The Orh Nee Cake
LUNA is known for its elegant, modern cakes that often incorporate local flavours. Their Orh Nee Cake is a prime example. It transforms the traditional Teochew yam paste dessert into a sophisticated layered cake with soft yam sponge, yam ginkgo paste, and a light coconut chantilly cream.
The genius lies in its balance. The yam flavour is authentic and earthy, not artificial, and the sweetness is perfectly controlled. The use of coconut cream adds a familiar local fragrance and lightness that prevents the yam from being too heavy or jelak.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Integrating local flavours. Don't just add a flavour; deconstruct it. The Orh Nee Cake isn't just "yam-flavoured." It incorporates all the elements of the original dessert—yam, ginkgo, shallot oil (subtly), and coconut. When adapting a local flavour, think about all its components and how you can translate them into a new format.
7. Two Men Bagel House: The Bagel
This is a change of pace from sweet pastries, but essential for any serious home baker. Two Men Bagel House produces bagels with the perfect chew—a result of a proper boil before baking. Try a simple seeded bagel to truly appreciate its texture.
The key characteristics are a glossy, slightly crisp crust and a dense, chewy interior. This isn't just round bread. The boiling process gelatinises the starches on the crust, which is what creates that signature sheen and chew.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Process is everything. You can’t cheat your way to a good bagel. The lesson here is to respect the traditional steps of a recipe. Learning to shape, proof, boil, and bake a bagel will teach you more about yeast, gluten development, and heat transfer than a dozen cake recipes.
8. Tigerlily Patisserie: The Forest Berry Taco
Helmed by a fine-dining pastry chef, Tigerlily's creations are both whimsical and technically precise. Their Forest Berry Taco, a choux pastry "taco shell" filled with berry compote and cream, is a brilliant lesson in form and function.
Instead of a classic choux puff, the pastry is piped into a flat disc and baked until crisp, then folded. This innovative shape provides a unique eating experience and a perfect vessel for its fillings. It shows how a classic technique (pâte à choux) can be reimagined.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Rethink classic shapes. Master a fundamental dough like pâte à choux, shortcrust, or brioche. Then, ask yourself: how else can I shape and use this? Can my choux be a taco? Can my shortcrust be a decorative lattice? Innovation often starts with a simple "what if?"
9. Cedele: The Carrot Cake
Cedele's Carrot Cake is an institution. It’s a classic done right, and for a home baker, understanding why it’s so good is a crucial lesson. It's incredibly moist, packed with walnuts and carrots, and topped with a cream cheese frosting that isn't cloyingly sweet.
The secret is in the moisture and texture. They likely use oil instead of butter for a moister crumb that lasts longer. The density is also perfect—it's substantial but not heavy, with the walnuts providing a much-needed textural contrast.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Master moisture in cakes. Oil-based cakes are a fantastic addition to your repertoire, especially for fruit and vegetable cakes. Learn the role of ingredients like grated carrots, applesauce, or yoghurt in keeping cakes moist. Cedele's cake proves that a well-executed classic will always be in style.
10. The Fat Kid Bakery: The Sourdough Bombos
These are not your average doughnuts. The Fat Kid Bakery’s sourdough bomboloni are light, airy, and have a subtle tang from the sourdough starter that beautifully balances the sweet fillings. They are a testament to the versatility of sourdough.
Bite into one and you'll notice the texture is less "bready" and more pillowy than a typical doughnut. The sourdough fermentation process creates a complex flavour and a beautifully open crumb, even in a fried dough.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Sourdough is for more than just bread. If you maintain a sourdough starter, challenge yourself to use it in sweet applications. It can add incredible depth of flavour to doughnuts, brioche, and even cookies. This is your sign to experiment beyond the boule.
11. Pantler: The Choux Puff
Pantler is a slice of Japan-meets-France elegance. Their Choux a la Crème is a textbook example of a perfect cream puff. The choux shell is impossibly light and crisp, holding its shape without being tough or eggy.
The magic is in the double filling: a light vanilla-flecked custard (crème pâtissière) and a delicate whipped cream. This combination provides both richness and airiness. The crispness of the craquelin topping adds another layer of texture.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: The importance of textural contrast. A single-note texture can be boring. Pantler's choux teaches you to combine crisp (shell), creamy (custard), and light (whipped cream) in a single bite. Think about how you can add a crunchy element to your next creamy dessert.
12. L'éclair Pâtisserie: The Modern Éclair
This is Singapore's first éclair-specialty store, and it's a deep dive into how a single pastry can be a canvas for endless creativity. Their Ispahan éclair, with rose, lychee, and raspberry, is a tribute to the great Pierre Hermé and a lesson in flavour pairing.
Look at the precision. The choux is perfectly straight, the glaze is flawless and shiny, and the toppings are placed with artistic intent. The flavour combinations are sophisticated and balanced, proving that the humble éclair can be elevated to high art.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Precision and presentation matter. Baking is a science, and pastry is an art. Use a ruler to cut your choux to uniform lengths. Learn how to make a mirror glaze. Practice your piping. L'éclair shows that meticulous attention to detail is what separates a good bake from a great one.
13. Fluff Bakery: The Halal Cupcake with a Twist
This beloved Halal bakery started as a home-based business, which makes it the ultimate inspiration for aspiring patissiers. Fluff is famous for its inventive cupcake flavours that often incorporate local and childhood favourites, like Ondeh Ondeh or Apam Balik.
Their Ondeh Ondeh cupcake is a prime example. It’s not just a pandan cake; it’s filled with a gooey Gula Melaka core and topped with coconut buttercream and desiccated coconut. It successfully translates the entire experience of eating the original kueh into cupcake form.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Tell a story with your flavours. What flavours from your childhood can you reinvent? Don't just make a "chocolate cupcake." Make a "Milo Dinosaur Cupcake" with a malted chocolate cake and a Milo powder topping. Fluff Bakery's success is built on this creative and nostalgic approach.
14. Olsen Bakehouse: The Ondeh Ondeh Cake
While Fluff does a cupcake version, Olsen Bakehouse is renowned for its full-sized Ondeh Ondeh Cake. This bake is a fantastic study in cake construction and balancing a very specific, beloved local flavour profile.
Analyse the layers. You have a soft, fluffy pandan sponge, a rich Gula Melaka filling that provides a gooey, caramel-like centre, and a light frosting often made with coconut cream. The desiccated coconut on the outside provides the final, essential textural note. It’s a symphony of pandan, coconut, and palm sugar.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Master the "surprise inside." The gooey Gula Melaka centre is the highlight. Learn how to create a "dam" with your frosting on each cake layer to contain a soft filling like caramel, curd, or jam. This simple technique elevates a simple layer cake into something much more exciting.
15. Micro Bakery & Kitchen: The Sourdough Loaf
Sometimes, the most important lesson is in the simplest thing. At Micro Bakery, the focus is on naturally leavened breads with a beautiful open crumb, a blistered, crunchy crust, and a delightfully tangy flavour.
Getting a loaf like this requires understanding fermentation, hydration, and steam. It’s a slow, patient process that can't be rushed. The quality of their bread shows a deep respect for the ingredients and the process, a philosophy I believe Goh Ling Yong himself would appreciate.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Fall in love with the process. Sourdough baking isn’t about instant gratification. It teaches you to observe, adapt to your environment (temperature, humidity), and be patient. Mastering a basic sourdough loaf will make you a more intuitive and confident baker in all other areas.
16. Konditori Artisan Bakes: The Fudgy Brownie
Located in the heart of the CBD, Konditori serves up European-style pastries, but their brownie is a hidden gem worth studying. It hits the perfect spot between fudgy and cakey, with a gorgeous, paper-thin crinkly top.
The secret to that top layer is in the sugar and eggs. Whipping the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale incorporates air and helps dissolve the sugar, which then bakes into that signature meringue-like crust. The quality of the chocolate is also paramount for a deep, rich flavour.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Understand the function of sugar. Sugar isn't just for sweetness; it's crucial for texture. The technique of whipping eggs and sugar is fundamental for achieving that crinkly brownie top, and it's the same principle that gives you a light sponge cake.
17. The Durian Bakery: The Durian Mille Crêpe Cake
Baking with durian is a uniquely Southeast Asian challenge. The Durian Bakery has perfected it. Their Durian Mille Crêpe Cake is a marvel of delicate construction, layering dozens of paper-thin crêpes with a rich, pungent Mao Shan Wang durian-infused cream.
The challenge is balancing the powerful flavour of the durian without it being overwhelming, and ensuring the delicate crêpe structure can support the rich filling. The lightness of the crêpes and cream is key.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: How to work with dominant flavours. When using a powerful ingredient like durian, coffee, or dark chocolate, the other components must support, not compete. The light, neutral crêpes and a subtly sweetened cream provide the perfect backdrop for the King of Fruits to shine.
18. Le Matin Patisserie: The Pistachio Escargot
From a celebrated pastry chef, Le Matin's offerings are complex and exquisite. While many are for advanced bakers, the Pistachio Escargot is an achievable challenge. It's a beautiful swirl of laminated dough filled with a vibrant pistachio paste and rose-scented pastry cream.
This pastry teaches you about creating complex, layered flavours. It's not just "pistachio." It's nutty, sweet, floral (from the rose), and buttery all at once. The swirl shape ensures you get a bit of every element in each bite.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Build flavour in layers. Think beyond a single filling. Can you combine a nut paste with a fruit curd? A spice-infused cream with a chocolate ganache? This approach to layering complementary flavours is a hallmark of professional pastry work.
19. Fosters Steakhouse: The Classic Scone
An unexpected entry, but the scones at Fosters, a classic English-style restaurant, are legendary. They are tall, fluffy, and tender, served exactly as they should be: with jam and clotted cream. They are a masterclass in the simple, yet hard-to-perfect, scone.
The secret to a good scone is a light hand and cold ingredients. Overworking the dough develops gluten and makes them tough. The goal is a "short" crumb that is tender and crumbly, not bready. The height of their scones suggests they use a good amount of leavening and don't twist the cutter when stamping them out.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Less is more. The scone teaches you the art of minimal mixing. Once you add the liquid, mix just until the dough comes together. Lumps are okay. This gentle handling is the key to tenderness, a principle that also applies to pie crusts and shortbread.
20. Carpenter and Cook: The Lemon Tart
This vintage-themed cafe and artisan bakery serves up classic bakes, and their lemon tart is a perfect final lesson. It features a crisp, buttery shortcrust pastry (pâte sablée) and a zesty, intensely lemon-flavoured curd that is the perfect balance of sweet and tart.
A great lemon tart is a study in contrasts. The crisp, sweet, crumbly shell against the smooth, sharp, tangy filling. Getting the curd to set perfectly without being rubbery or runny is a test of temperature control and technique.
The Home Baker's Takeaway: Master the classic tart. Learning to make a perfect pâte sablée and a silky lemon curd are fundamental skills. This single dessert teaches you how to blind bake a crust, how to make a stable emulsion for the curd, and the critical importance of balancing sweetness and acidity. It’s the perfect capstone project for any aspiring home patissier.
Your Kitchen Awaits
And there you have it—a foodie tour of Singapore designed to awaken the baker within you. As we've seen on the Goh Ling Yong blog before, food is about more than just taste; it's about story, technique, and passion. Each of these 20 bakes offers a delicious lesson, a secret from a professional kitchen that you can now take into your own.
Don't be intimidated by the perfection you see behind the counter. Instead, see it as a benchmark and a source of endless inspiration. Pick one bake that truly excites you, visit the cafe, taste it mindfully, and then head home and give it a try. Your first attempt might not be perfect, but every bake is a step forward.
Now, I'd love to hear from you. Which of these cafes is your go-to for baking inspiration? Have you ever tried to recreate a signature bake from a local spot? Share your stories, successes, and even your "happy little accidents" in the comments below. Happy baking
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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