Ondeh Ondeh is a traditional kueh which are cake balls filled with liquid palm sugar and coated in grated coconut. Always loved the moment when the liquid pops within the mouth.
Its ingredients have served as the backbone behind the fashionable “Ondeh Ondeh Cake” which has been trending the last few years in Singapore, and I am sure many of you are also craving for a slice now.
This is an East-meets-West style of cake, usually made with pandan cake and layered with grated coconut soaked in gula melaka (a type of palm sugar).
Many cafes have started to offer the localised Ondeh Ondeh Cake other than the usual chocolate, cheesecake and red velvets. Do you know that Starbucks Singapore used to sell them too? (They should bring it back.)
For the purpose of this Ondeh Ondeh Cake guide, I have only included cafes and bakeries in Singapore with physical stores, and not sourced from a commonly used cake supplier.
There are many homebakers who do up positively reviewed versions, such as the highly raved Ade’s Homebake, Tina Indulgence, Eme’s Home Bakery and Beelibakes. Do look out for them too if you are looking at whole cake deliveries.
Baker’s Brew Café
Orchard Paragon, 290 Orchard Road #05-46 Singapore 238859 (Orchard MRT)
Tel: +65 6909 0669
Opening Hours: 11am – 9pm (Mon – Fri) 10am – 9pm (Sat – Sun)
Of all the Ondeh Ondeh cakes I tried in the market, Baker’s Brew Café manages to present theirs in an elegant, aesthetically-pleasing packaging.
Baker’s Brew Café is a contemporary café and baking studio at Orchard Paragon serving handcrafted cakes and artisanal desserts. There are outlets at Sembawang (No 6 Jalan Tampang), 246H Upper Thomson Road, and Great World City (B1-K103) for takeaways.
The Ondeh Ondeh Cake is its best-seller, containing two layers of soft and moist pandan sponge, filled with fragrant gula melaka and desiccated coconut.
I enjoyed its lightness, soft and spongy texture, along with smooth cream that was not too sweet.
Other than the two-tone coconut buttercream, the cake is topped off with toasted coconuts, coconut cookies, and Ondeh Ondeh balls – my favourite part which make it extra decadent.
$58 for 6 inch, $78 for 8 inch, $128 for 10 inch, $198 for 12 inch.
Julie Bakes
14 Baghdad Street, Singapore 199653
Tel: +65 9647 9027
Opening Hours: 12pm – 8pm (Tues – Sun), Closed Mon
Founder of Julie Bakes Juliana Jahayer started as a home-based baker, and she now owns a popular bakery shop at No. 14 Baghdad Street.
When you search for “Ondeh Ondeh Cakes” on Google, Julie Bakes usually comes up on the the tops and recommended by reviewers, which led me to this shop (quite close to Arab Street).
Baked fresh daily at the bakery, the slice has fluffy pandan sponge, with layers of crunchy gula melaka and topped with pandan frosting.
Some may find it slightly on the sweet side due to the amount of palm sugar added to the middle. I found that it reminded me closest to the original Ondeh Ondeh, perhaps due to the freshness of the ingredients.
$8 per slice, or $60 per whole cake (1.3kg).
Fluff Bakery
4 Jalan Pisang, Singapore 199071
Tel: +65 8251 1353
Opening Hours: 12pm – 7pm (Mon – Sat), Closed Sun
Head Baker Nursyazanna Syaira started out baking cupcakes in her mom’s kitchen, taking small orders from family and friends as a hobby, and soon her bakes became popular.
Fluff Bakery’s cupcakes may be what keep people coming, but the Ondeh Ondeh Cake is also a best-seller (In fact, I bought the very last slice one late afternoon.)
Their Ondeh Ondeh Cake is essentially a pandan cake with coconut cream, gula melaka bits, toasted coconut and coconut cream frosting.
It was that layer of the blend of coconut strips and palm sugar bits that I loved most, with a most texture and palm sugar taste so sweetly-satisfying.
$45 for 6 inch, $72 for 9 inch, $90 for 9 inch cake. $8 per slice available, though in limited quanties.
The Malayan Council
71 Bussorah Street, Singapore 199484
Tel: +65 9002 4414
Opening Hours: 11:30am – 11pm (Mon – Sun)
Located in one of the oldest heritage areas, The Malayan Council is a restaurant which offers Malay dishes with Western influences such as Lemak Chili Padi, Asam Pedas, Soup Tulang, and Masak Merah.
But people also head to the restaurant for its housemade Ondeh Ondeh cake.
The cake contained a moist pandan cake base, layered with gula melaka bits and coconut drizzle, frosted with coconut chantilly cream.
While I wished for the slice to be slightly bigger for its price, the contrast between the fluffy sponge and crystalised crunchy sugar bits made it quite delectable. Nice that there was a scoop of ice cream too.
$9.50 per slice, 8 inch whole cake at $58.
HarriAnns Nonya Table
230 Victoria St, #01-01A Bugis Junction Towers, Singapore 188024
Tel: +65 6238 1200
Opening Hours: 7:30am – 8:30pm (Mon – Fri), 8:30am – 8:30pm (Sat – Sun)
HarriAnns may be well known for their traditional kueh kueh, but I found out that their HarriAnns Signature Ondeh Ondeh Cake is quite worth the calories too. (Actually I only noticed it when I walked past the store.)
The cake looked looked tall with several layers, slightly different from the usual styles available in other Singapore cafes.
Handmade fresh daily in their central kitchens, good to know that the fluffy sponge cake is organically flavoured and coloured with freshly-squeezed pandan juice. This was also more moist which I liked.
It is delicately piped with soft, fresh cream and drizzled generously with premium imported gula melaka for a pleasing finish.
$6.90 per slice, $69 for 9 inch (1.65 kg). Self pick-up at HarriAnns Nonya Table outlets at Bugis Junction, Suntec City, Ocean Financial Centre, Keppel Bay Tower.
Ollella
Ngee Ann City Takashimaya Basement, 391A Orchard Rd, Singapore 238873
Ollella makes all the components of its signature Ondeh Ondeh cake in-house, and the pandan sponge layers are made with 100% pandan extract that is hand-squeezed.
Another differentiating factor is that they use gula jawa instead of gula melaka for the “inti” – the coconut gula filling. The coconut filling is made using only freshly-grated coconut and stir-fried over low heat with the sugar.
The gula jawa is imported from Java Indonesia, which has a different flavour profile which allows it to have a deeper caramelised flavour to the coconut mixture.
While most other Ondeh Ondeh cakes are more chiffon-like, this has a texture that is closer to old-school sponge which is able to carry the moistness of the fillings.
$32 for 5 inch available at Takashimaya B2. 5 inch ($32) and 9 inch ($62) available for online orders at www.ollella.com. There is currently a promotion with free delivery above $35 order.
Lina’s Cafe
7 Jalan Pisang Singapore 199074 (Bugis MRT station)
Tel: +65 9456 0992
Opening Hours: 11am – 7:30pm (Mon), 11am – 8:30pm (Tue – Sat), Close Sun, PH and 1st Mon of every month
Muslim owned Lina’s Café calls itself a “Friends of Autism” Café with the hope to create a safe haven for families with ASD kids to dine in a judgement free zone
Their Ondeh Ondeh Cake has a very light chiffon-like texture (almost like pandan cake) sprinkled with Gula Melaka bits,
The cake is soft, not too sweet and low fat with aromatic pandan and crunchy gula melaka bits in between layers.
It is sometimes eaten with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, so as to end off the café meal with a satisfying dessert.
$6 per slice.
The Royals Cafe
19 Upper East Coast Road, Singapore 455209
Tel: +65 8481 0080
Opening Hours: 9:30am – 9pm (Mon – Sun)
The Ondeh Ondeh Cake is made by in-house pastry team, with soft and moist pandan sponge, layered with freshly-grated coconut infused with gula melaka.
This is then coated with layers of coconut buttercream to give a richer flavour to the whole cake.
If you takeaway and refrigerate the cake, it will be best to thaw the cake sufficiently before eating due to the heavier cream used.
$7.50 per slice, $20 for 3 inch, $50.30 for 6 inch, $80.25 for 8 inch.
Whiskit Bakery & Cafe
533 Upper Cross Street, Hong Lim Complex #01-33, Singapore 050533
Tel: +65 9366 6136
Opening Hours: 11am – 5pm (Mon – Sat), Closed Sun
Whiskit hidden at the basement of Hong Lim Complex offers an Ondeh Ondeh Cake made in-house.
This consists of pandan genoise sponge and pandan butter cream; and in between the cake layers are freshly grated coconut and gula melaka bits and syrup.
What is special is that cake consists of three types of coconut, which are freshly grated coconut between the cake layers, desiccated coconut on the outer layer, and juicy shredded coconut on top.
Customers also have the option of topping up with in-house ondeh balls made using honey sweet potato and purple sweet potato.
I also saw a poster of their Ondeh Tart included with homemade kaya, though it was not available when I visited. Bookmarking for next visit.
$34 for 16cm, $55 for $18 cm.
Cedele
Various outlets around Singapore, including Greenwich V, HillV2, Parkway Parade, Dunearn, The Star Vista, City Square Mall, Waterway Point, Frankel Avenue, Mapletree Business City, Marina Bay Financial Centre, One Raffles Quay, Novena Square, Raffles City, 71 Robinson Road, Tanglin Mall, Suntec City North Wing, United Square, Wheelock Place, Great World, Guoco Tower, VivoCity, Jewel Changi Airport, Raffles Xchange, The Metropolis, Frasers Tower, Republic Plaza, Marina Bay Sands
Cedele has always been known for their wholesome cakes, and you can probably find an outlet near enough to you.
One of their classics is the “Gula Melaka Pandan Cake” (picture above), consisting of an aromatic pandan cake layered with steamed egg pandan custard, frosted with gula melaka-sweetened cream cheese with sprinkling of fresh coconut shreds.
I recently saw under their shelf that they have a relatively newly-launched Ondeh Ondeh Cake, which made me slightly excited.
Compared to the older classic cake, there were more layers to this slice. There was the fluffy pandan cake, moist pandan curd, semi-crunchy coconut gula melaka filling, creamy pandan frosting and fresh desiccated coconut – which worked like a symphony when you take a spoonful of the cross-section.
As the cake is baked with organic unrefined sugar, it is also not too sweet. Yeah.
$8.30 per slice, 48 for 6 inch.
One more…
Two Bakers
88 Horne Rd, Singapore 209083
Tel: +65 6293 0329
Opening Hours: 9am – 5pm (Mon – Sun)
Of all the Ondeh Ondeh Cakes featured, Two Baker’s version looked entirely different as it is shaped like a dome.
It is handmade in-house at the main kitchen at Horne Road. The beautiful green hue comes from extracted pandan juice, and no artificial colour or flavouring is used.
What you get is pandan sponge topped with desiccated coconut; and nestled within the coconut mousse is gula melaka jelly.
HOWEVER, I just found out that the Ondeh Ondeh Cake is currently NOT available, while there is another cake called “Pure” at $8.50 per piece which is similar but comes without pandan juice added. They should just bring the Ondeh Ondeh Cake back.
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