Salt Bakes is a relatively-new bakery in Bukit Batok West Shopping Centre, opposite Sheng Siong Supermarket. The modern bakery bakes a wide range of flavourful cakes, breads, buns and pastries, such as tapioca kueh, muffins, tau sar peah (mung bean biscuit), etc. The great news is: other than reasonable price tags, their cakes and pastries are of low sweetness and uses no artificial preservatives.
Salt Bakes’s freshly-baked cakes are laid out in glass shelves and there are always new types of cake whenever I walked into the bakery — seems to me they have different sets of cake on rotation everyday. Breads, buns and cookies are in another glass shelves. There are several flavours of tapioca kueh too: red bean, pandan, brown sugar, sweet potato and baked.
Top-left: Salt Bakes has two variants of Carrot Cake (萝卜蛋糕): one with a top layer of cream cheese and the other without. The Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese (萝卜和奶油乳酪蛋糕) is the first cake that caught my attention when the bakery just opened. The moist crumble cake is made using strips of carrot, walnuts, raisins, etc, and has a layer of thick cream cheese. The cake is mild-sweet with the cream cheese adding savouriness to it. On the whole, the cake tastes nice and its low sweetness level is definitely a draw.
Top-right: Salt Bakes’s Honey Castella Cake is much closer to the Japanese style with a layer of honey-sweetened crumb on top a denser soft sponge cake — and I seem to pick up some grated coconut in the honey layer. Despite being a honey-sweetened cake, the sweetness level is not high.
Bottom-left: The Butter & Walnut Cake resembles a fruit cake, except that crushed walnuts are used in place of fruit bits. The cake carries a buttery aroma and flavour with the walnuts providing some crunchy texture.
Bottom-right: The Matcha Red Bean Cake (抹茶红豆蛋糕) is another hot-seller with big red beans on matcha-flavoured soft cake. The Japanese has proven that pairing matcha with red beans is a perfect, popular combination. The cake has nice matcha and red bean aromas that filled the nostrils when munched on.
Among the fruity series of cakes, I have tried:
Top-left: The Banana Cake (香蕉蛋糕) has slices of banana embedded on top of the cake and baked. The resulting soft, fluffy cake has a nice banana aroma.
Top-right: The Lemon Cake (柠檬蛋糕) has a checkered pattern on top with lemon jam that gives the cake a refreshing and citrusy flavour.
Centre: The Blueberry Cake (蓝莓蛋糕) has quite a number of ingredients, including black sesame seeds, fruity bits, etc, embedded in the purplish soft cake that gives off a blueberry aroma.
Centre-right: The Peach Cake (黄桃蛋糕) has a layer with cuts of peach fruit laid above a sponge cake, giving the soft cake a fruity peach flavour.
Bottom-left: The Yuzu Cake (柚子蛋糕) has a top layer of yuzu jam with thin wavy pattern that gives the cake its sweet yuzu flavour and aroma. The base cake has a tangy flavour and a texture similar to Malay brown sugar cake (马来糕) but more crumbly.
Bottom-right: The Pineapple Crumble Cake (凤梨蛋糕) has a top layer of thin pineapple slices in pineapple jam laid above a fruity crumble cake that has walnuts, raisins, cherry, etc. It has a nice pineapple flavour and similarly low in sweetness. I love the textures and flavours of their crumble cakes.
The wide range of cakes by Salt Bakes do not share the same base and are of low sweetness levels with nice flavours and aromas — and with different textures. As all their cakes use no preservatives, it will be best to put them in the fridge before the end of the day.
Top: Aside from cakes, I have also tried all the different flavours of the tapioca kueh: red bean, pandan, brown sugar and sweet potato. Coated with grated coconut, these kueh have rich cassava taste with mellow flavours of the additional ingredients.
Bottom-left: The Tapioca (Red Bean) Kueh is a unique creation with whole red beans added. Similarly, it has cassava flavour with nice taste of red beans, which are nicely-cooked without being overly soft and give the tapioca kueh some biting texture.
Bottom-right: The Baked Tapioca Kueh, without grated coconut, has nice cassava flavour and texture — different from the others, of course. It is quite thick and satisfying to munch on.
Most of Salt Bakes’s buns are slightly larger in size as compared to other bakeries.
Top: The Matcha Red Bean Buns is sold in bags of 6 buns each. In a bun, the matcha flavour is expected to be very subtle with occasional bursts of rich red bean sweetness. They are good to be eaten as is or go with light cheese spread or butter.
Top-right: The Lemon Polo Bun (柠檬菠萝包) is a new creation that introduces a lemony flavour into the soft crust, and without filling.
Centre: The Polo Char Siew Bun (菠萝叉烧包) has a soft custard crust with sesame seeds. The chicken char siew filling is moist without too much char siew sauce and the sweetness level is greatly reduced, thus the bun is not too sweet on the whole.
Centre-right: The Salt Bun, or shio pan, is a savoury bun with buttery aroma and the savouriness is evenly spread throughout the whole bun. It is nice to eat as it is or stuff it with some fillings.
Bottom-left: The Sardine Bun is mild-spicy with a hint of shallot sweetness in the sardine filling.
Bottom-right: The Sweet Potato Bun and Yam Bun have mellow flavours of sweet potato and yam respectively in the fillings. Similarly, they are low in sweetness.
Salt Bakes’s new series of bread are amazingly soft — I bought a Japanese Red Bean Loaf to try. The bread, thickly sliced into 6 pieces, carries a subtle buttery aroma with a hint of savoury taste in the soft, fluffy bread. The thin streaks of red beans paste, containing mashed red beans, gives the bread its rich flavour and sweetness. The bread tastes so good that it can be eaten on its own or with light-tasting spread. There are other flavours of pandan kaya, multi-grains and wholemeal too.
Salt Bakes’s wide range of low-sweetness, flavourful cakes, buns and tapioca kuehs are well-loved by many, especially the elderlies. And they are reasonably priced too.
Address:
Bukit Batok West Shopping Centre
Blk 154 Bukit Batok Street 11, #01-310, Singapore 650154
Opening Hours:
7am to 9pm | Daily
Nearby:
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