Best Halal Restaurants in Singapore

Fluff Bakery

Hubby and I had one of our 'great minds think alike' moments this Christmas when it came to which cookbook we needed to get. He texted me from Foyles about whether I wanted anything and I didn't see it until 30 min later when he had already left. Though fortunately he had already grabbed it :) #CookForSyria is a book published to collect money for Children in Syria. All proceeds go to UNICEF to help the children impacted by this terrible war. The recipes were donated by various chefs and bloggers in the UK and there are so many amazing looking options to try and in this post you will see a few we tried out on New Year's Eve. Here is the result of our romantic New Year's Eve meal at home. We had been out with friends on the 30th and felt like being home just the two of us after hosting over Christmas. We drank copious amounts of champagne and really enjoyed our chilled out dinner. So what did we make? We did the almond chicken meatballs with an almond sauce, on wilted cabbage and brown rice, with lemon garlic coriander broad beans plus two dips - muhammara and moutabal. Hubby also made some flat breads - all so good 

The meatballs (by Amelia Freer) are sooo easy but soooooo yummy, seriously good. We will be making these again for sure! You roughly chop some chicken and then mince it by using the food processor on pulse. You add some ground almonds (you might want to clean the processor out first!) then chop up some spring onions and add them in. Beat an egg and add that. Then add cumin and coriander, salt and black pepper plus coriander leaves and mix it all together.

Fluff Bakery, a cupcake business in Singapore, is the brainchild of 26-year-old Nursyazanna Syaira. What started out as a domestic duty – having helped her mother bake traditional cakes in her younger years – has now developed into a successful business that was even worthy of mention by the Prime Minister of Singapore at the recent Malay Muslim Business Conference.

This cupcake bakery has a penchant for creating zany and unorthodox ways to reach out to their customers on Instagram. Each Instagram post can sometimes garner more than 500 “likes”. Not to mention that her cupcake combinations are out of this world, with descriptions like “dark chocolate potato chips banana” and “green apple Yakult lemon Nerds”.

All businesses come with challenges and Fluff Bakery is no exception. The bakery’s success is a reflection of Syaira’s grit and determination in not only to set up her business, but also to cope with the harsh reality of life. She shares how her husband Ashraf, with his academic business qualifications and relentless support, helped her realise her dream.

Why did you start Fluff Bakery?

I started Fluff Bakery because I felt unfulfilled. I had done what everyone told me to do – go to school, study hard, get a degree and get a decent-paying job. After all that, I realised that I was still unhappy after a few job stints with some public relations companies. It got to a point where it was unbearable, I would cry during my weekday morning showers because I really did not want to go to the office.

I was sick of people telling me that I was not good enough and I wanted to prove them wrong. I talked to my husband (then fiancé) about it and he said: “If you don’t want to do it any more, then just quit your job!” And I did – I quit six months to our wedding, with no savings whatsoever. It was a very risky move, but it forced me to sit down and ask myself: “What am I good at? What makes me happy? Can I turn my passion into a livelihood?”

I realised that baking is the one thing I am good at and which makes me very happy. It is an outlet for me to quell any anger or disappointment in my life. Baking is therapy for me. Anyone armed with ingredients, a cake mixer and some baking sense is trying to jump on the bandwagon. What makes the thriving Fluff Bakery any different from other cupcake businesses? When I first started, I would bake from home and people could either collect their orders from my house or get us to deliver them. It elicited such a good response that after a while, we were fully booked for three months in advance. It was then that I was introduced to the owner of a thriving café. He was looking for someone to supply cupcakes to his joint. We sent a sample box of cupcakes to him and he loved it. We started supplying about 100 to 150 cupcakes a day to the café. At the same time, I needed extra income to pay for my wedding, so it was then that I started working in the café’s kitchen in the day, poaching eggs and making sandwiches. It was getting extremely difficult for me to manage working in the day and baking till the wee hours of the night. I was exhausted. But I started seeing customers who would keep coming to the café to buy my cupcakes. Soon, there was a queue every morning before the café opened. We started selling out earlier by the day, many who came for the cupcakes had to be told that they were sold out. The cupcakes were becoming so elusive that it put people off and many customers stopped trying to get them. I knew I needed to do something before I lost all these customers.

I finally realised that the crazy demand for my cupcakes had to be met, especially after exclusively supplying my cupcakes to Parlour, the boutique café set up by the famous fashion designer Ashley Isham.

We finally decided on having our own brick-and-mortar shop despite not having any background in business. I had no idea on what needed to be done in setting up a proper company or a bakery.

Inexperience was the enemy, and capital was our main challenge at the start. We did not have enough to set up a bakery, so we brought on two investors and took a loan from our family. It was amazing to see how people believed in our business and concept even when we did not have much to show them.

How do you use social media to promote your business?

I have always envisioned Fluff Bakery to be more than just another business. I felt like it needed to connect with the customers and not just be a corporate account. We market ourselves only through social media, a platform where people are free to express themselves and their personality.

I did not see why Fluff Bakery could not do that as a business. Putting up pictures of our staff, posting videos of us having fun and sharing our personal journey and milestones allowed Fluff Bakery to be more personable to customers. I wanted the customers to know that we are actually regular everyday people who bake these cupcakes, not robots working in a factory.

I also constantly post reviews from customers. They take photos of our cupcakes with things like LEGO characters, they bring their whole family along and snap pictures of them queuing and some of them come with their grandmothers. I showcase them to show other people that our customers are also regular everyday people like you and me, that we are all part of the same community. It is both a deliberate marketing plan and also an extension of my personality as I am the one handling the social media accounts.

How did you go creating all these cupcake flavours?

The things that I eat as well as the experiences that I go through often inspire me. We go for holidays and I am inspired by the flavours of that country.

For example, we went to Bangkok and I came back and did a Thai milk tea cupcake, and when I came back from Phuket, I created a lemongrass-infused cupcake. I am all up for crazy flavours. I get curious and wonder what things taste like when they are eaten together. It is part passion and part curiosity. Some of them turn out great and some do not.

I am blessed with the amazing ability to think of two flavours and “taste” it in my head before actually getting down to the kitchen to make it.

How did your husband help you realise your dream? Ashraf has always wanted to have a business of his own and he is great with numbers while I am terribly hopeless at it. That combination complements very well as he handles the business aspects while I take care of operations and experimenting with ingredients for new flavour creations. With that flexibility, I was able to perfect my red velvet cupcake recipe after only two years! What challenges did you face when opening up the bakery? It has always been my dream to have my own little bakery and Ashraf was very supportive of the idea. We spoke about opening up our own store and how we were going to save up for it after marriage. When we were dating, he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton. To alleviate the pain, he had to go through a monthly jab that would cost a few thousand dollars each time.About a month after the wedding, Ashraf started losing vision in his left eye. After two weeks, 70 percent of his sight was gone. An eye neurologist diagnosed a pituitary gland tumour in that eye, and upon further investigation, an oncologist discovered another tumour in the pineal gland in the brain.We were devastated. Everything at that point in time – hopes and dreams for the bakery – was shelved. My preoccupation was just to be by my husband’s

side and support him in any way I could. I thought that I was going to lose him and it crushed me emotionally. As for Ashraf, this made him even more determined to see me live my dreams and wanted me to have something to support myself with even if he was not going to make it.Ashraf had to undergo a brain biopsy and other complicated procedures when he was in hospital. He is now on medication and the tumours had thankfully shrank. When he got well, he made it his mission to make sure Fluff Bakery had a brick-and-mortar store instead of being home-based. Indeed God has different tests for everyone and we believe this was ours. This whole episode made us realise how fragile life is and that time with your loved ones is more precious than anything else.What is your advice to Aquila Style readers with regard to business, hopes, dreams and fears? I would say that the only thing to fear is fear itself. When you acknowledge your fears and face them, you begin to ask “why not?” instead of “why?”. This challenges you to open up your mind and think outside the box. Starting a business, growing a business and maintaining a business are not easy, but nothing is easy until you make mistakes and learn from them.A person who does not make mistakes will not grow. Dream big, but also be realistic in your expectations. Believe in your own capabilities and let passion take you on a whirlwind journey. As for hope, I believe that there is always light at the end of  the tunnel. We may not see it but we all know it is there.