Old School Confectionaries To Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth In Singapore

These days, Singapore is hipster heaven with cute cafés and artisanal desserts for sale on every corner across the island, from Bugis to Tiong Bahru. But long before café culture became ubiquitous in the Lion City, there were bakeries that specialized in traditional Chinese sweets like kueh and ondeh ondeh as well as more Eurasian style baked goods like sugee cake.

1. Balmoral Bakery

Bakery, Australian, British

Balmoral Bakery opened the year of Singapore’s independence and has been serving up sweet and savory pastries to its loyal customers for over five decades. It was founded by the same Hainanese brothers who owned the Balmoral Steak House in Holland Village that catered to Australian and English expats, and so many of the bakery’s recipes are British-inspired. All of their products are not just made by hand, but they also use the same recipes they’ve been using for 50 years. Be sure to try their chicken pie or go for butter cakes that are still decorated in the traditional style, which gives them a vintage vibe.

2. Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery

Bakery, Chinese

Lek Lim Nonya Cake Confectionery started at the owner’s home where they made ku kuehs, also known as red tortoise cakes, using a family recipe and delivered them to nearby friends and customers. In 1979, they moved into their present-day home on Bedok North Street. Over the years, they added more and more items to their menu including their popular ang kueh (Chinese rice cake) and Chinese new year cookies. To this day, all of their products are handmade following their original family recipes.

3. Tiong Bahru Galicier Pastry

Bakery, Pastry Shop, Pastries

Tiong Bahru Galicier Pastry is known for its kueh dar dar — in this case, rice cakes filled with sweet coconut and pandan leaves. Unlike most places that use palm sugar for the filling, Tiong Bahru Galicier Pastry is unique in using rock sugar, which enhances the natural sweetness of the coconut filling. This bakery also makes an incomparable ondeh ondeh (boiled rice cakes stuffed with liquid palm sugar and rolled in grated coconut) using sweet potatoes to make the dough, resulting in a totally unique version of the pastry.

5. Chin Mee Chin Confectionery

Bakery, Cafe, Asian

If you’ve ever wondering how Singapore felt and looked before the rapid modernization it has undergone over the last decades, visit Chin Mee Chin to be whisked back to the late 1940s. This bakery has been located in this same shophouse on East Coast Road for more than 70 years, and very little has changed. Chin Mee Chin is the place to go for the traditional Singapore breakfast of kaya toast, soft-boiled eggs, and kopi. Be sure to also try their sugee cake — made from Semolina, it is a Singapore classic.

6. Dona Manis Cake Shop

Bakery, Asian

The Dona Manis Cake Shop is a relative newbie in the Singapore confectionery landscape. The confectionery opened 20 years ago and was started by Tan Keng Eng and Soh Tho Lang. The husband-and-wife team gained fame across the island for their trademarked banana pies. When patrons first started discovering them — and hidden away in the basement of Katong Shopping Centre, they really did have to be discovered — customers went crazy for these pies with sliced bananas enhanced by coconut shavings and an almond crunch to finish it off.

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