Tapping on her family’s expertise in making various flavourful curries, Tok Su Wen married her love for baking with her family’s curry recipe to create extra large-sized “curry bombs”, resulting in the launch of Yummy Tummy Bakes in late 2020.
Su Wen, who was working in the shipping industry for over 20 years, decided to dive into the food and beverage industry as a means to support her children during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This prompted the launch of Yummy Tummy Bakes as a home-based bakery in her four-room HDB flat.
Considering the #supportlocal movement that gained traction then, Yummy Tummy Bakes received overwhelming response and support from consumers, with Su Wen recalling that about 250 curry bombs were sold every week.
The best part about their curry bombs? It’s totally customisable. From the type of curry to the type of bread, consumers can choose from a wide variety of choices for an additional fee.
Challenges of a one-woman business
As the main chef behind Yummy Tummy bakes, the first challenge Su Wen faced was to fine-tune the family’s curry recipe so that it would go better with the bread she baked.
“For curry rice, we need the curry to be more soupy, but for bread, it needs to be thicker,” she says, recalling that it took about a week for her to finalise the recipe for the curry bombs.
However, it took a while for Yummy Tummy Bakes to get noticed by consumers in Singapore. “At first, sales were not really very good, but group buys helped a lot,” shared Su Wen.
Now, the 39 year-old has since expanded the business by going offline. She invested about S$50,000 to open a takeaway joint at NEWest mall in Clementi, where consumers can pick up their pre-orders.
“I started this business to be closer to my kids, but now I moved it out of the house because the environment at home was not conducive for baking,” she said with a chuckle.
When Yummy Tummy Bakes operated from home, Su Wen said that it was a stressful experience.
“It is very important to meet the timing for baking”, she said, adding that sometimes even she couldn’t do so as she also had to care for her children at home.
This was what eventually pushed her to expand out of her flat earlier in July this year to a proper kitchen and working area, where she could focus better on creating baked goods.
She notes that her children are much more independent now, so it felt like the right time to move her bakery elsewhere. “I don’t want to keep dragging it, it’s not good for the kids also”, she says.
“The rental is okay, so why not just try”, she adds. Though they still work on a pre-order basis, Su Wen highlights that extras will also be sold at their outlet.
Taiwanese-style mooncakes
Besides their signature XL curry bombs, Yummy Tummy Bakes also creates unique, Taiwanese-style mooncakes. Compared to traditional ones sold in Singapore during the mooncake festival, these mooncakes have much more texture and flavour.
For example, instead of a snowy soft skin, these mooncakes have a flaky skin crust that gives it a crispy texture. It also filled with soft chewy mochi coated in red bean paste, and topped off with pork floss.
Called 3Q mooncakes, they consist of different flavours such as green tea with azuki bean, red bean paste with orange peel, white lotus with yolk, and yam paste with yolk.
“The yam paste is actually homemade by us”, Su Wen highlights. As for the other mooncake pastes, she shares that they are directly imported from Taiwan.
With its unique textures and flavours, it’s no wonder how Yummy Tummy Bakes ended up selling about 500 boxes of these mooncakes last season.
As for their future business plans, Su Wen shares that there are plans to bring duck confit to the menu. This idea came to mind as she used to work at Irish Duck Company and realised that it would be interesting to incorporate them.
Another plan Yummy Tummy Bakes has been working on is to produce frozen curry bombs so that they can be shipped overseas. According to Su Wen, they have been trying to create this product since last year but to no avail, and are currently still in the midst of testing the product.
Featured image credit: Yummy Tummy Bakes
Also read: Since 1940s: How HarriAnns grew a pushcart stall into a Peranakan cafe chain in S’pore
