Retrenchment is never fun, especially when you’ve spent more than a decade in a job you love. But it was exactly what hit Joyce Chung in early 2019 and forced her return to Singapore after living in Hong Kong for 12 years. “There was a lot of uncertainty because I thought that job opportunities were better in Hong Kong than in Singapore, but I have two young children and my mother is getting older, so we decided to come home,” says the 44-year-old former department head at tech product accessory company, Belkin.

Turns out, the retrenchment was a blessing in disguise. Joyce returned to Singapore with her husband, the COO of a storage solutions company, and children aged two and four in June last year, just before the protests erupted in Hong Kong, blanketing the city in fiery chaos.

Once home and settled in her East Coast condo, Joyce’s husband began lamenting the lack of a good cinnamon roll in Singapore. “There are a lot of cinnamon rolls available out there, but most have plenty of sugar in them, and I’m not comfortable with some of the fats used in commercial baking, such as shortening, so I decided to bake some myself,” she enthuses. “It became sort of a challenge between my husband and I.”

Using a recipe she found online as a base, the self-taught baker set about her task, tweaking said recipe 27 times before she was happy with the texture and sweetness levels. Those cinnamon buns became her default contribution at get-togethers with friends, and before long, people began asking if they could buy them.

Thus, her home-based baking business was born at the end of 2019. The name Guilt Free Food alludes to the use of less sugar and only good-quality ingredients in her bakes. “If you look at butter [or butter substitutes], for example, you’ll find that there are lots of lower-grade ones that are mixed with hydrogenated fats,” she explains. “Compared to a commercial bun, mine has less sugar and no chemicals or preservatives. I also use pure butter from New Zealand. If I would let my toddler eat the buns I make, then I think anyone can eat it.”

Though business had always been relatively healthy, the tipping point came when the Circuit Breaker hit. “Suddenly, the orders started flooding in, even more so during Easter, which apparently has some association with cinnamon buns,” she says. “The last three months have been a roller coaster [ride]!” 

But it’s a roller coaster she rides with glee. “This experience has really taught me that retrenchment is not the end of the world,” she affirms. “There’s always another opportunity waiting. Now I have the best of both worlds — I can stay at home and look after my children while firing up my passion for baking. The income I earn now supports part of my financial needs — and I look forward to the day that it will succeed in supporting them fully.”

Joyce offers five different rolls in two sizes (basically the same cinnamon bun base with various toppings), a cookie and a brownie.

No kidding — this is the best cinnamon roll we’ve had in a long time. The buns are light, toasty and pull apart in lovely feathery, milky threads. We also love the cheerful little rainbow cake toppers perched atop the sea of brown buns that come conjoined like shiny munchkins (get the 10-inch one which has 10-12 pieces, these buns freeze quite well and are divine for breakfast, though they taste best on the day they’re baked). The slightly sticky toffee-ish reduced-sugar caramel gets a sophisticated depth from a hearty sprinkling of pink Himalayan salt. It is lush, smooth and light, all at once. Some of us thought it could do with more of that delicious frosting, while others felt it was just right.

The fluffy dough layered with lots of cinnamon and judicious slicks of butter and sugar make this the perfect cinnamon roll in our books. It’s light enough that we could scarf down three in quick succession and just sweet enough because it isn’t drowning in glaze. The crumb is dreamy: silky, moist and pillowy. Those of us with a sweet tooth found that we needed more than the light layer of glaze made from icing sugar and milk, though. Joyce says she is happy to oblige sugar-lovers if they ask for extra icing when they order.

The same fluffy cinnamon rolls topped with a classic cream cheese frosting whose richness is cut through by a good spritz of lemon juice, which gives it a lovely tang. With this one, we all agreed that the amount of frosting was just right.

So “triple” is a bit of a stretch since we definitely needed more of that yummy and light bittersweet frosting made of Dutch-processed cocoa powder, icing sugar, milk and vanilla. So be sure to tell Joyce to go big on that chocolate drizzle. The dough is slightly different from the other buns as it has a modest sprinkling of two types of dark Belgian chocolate worked into it.

We could not heap enough praise on these 125-gram whoppers when we tried them the morning they arrived, fresh out of the oven. They were creamy and dense on the inside, just-sweet, and richly mottled with almonds and bittersweet chocolate chips. In contrast, their craggy surfaces were crisp and deliciously toasty. They did soften as the day passed though, so that they were very doughy when we went back for seconds in the afternoon. But a quick toast in an 180°C oven and all was well again.

This is more chocolate banana bread than brownie, with an unapologetically dense, dark batter strewn with so many chocolate chips that it felt like the loaf was 70 percent chocolate chips and 30 percent banana bread batter. It’s high protein ’cos it has lots of eggs and minimal coconut flour (which is gluten-free). Super filling and unexpectedly addictive.

The stars in Joyce’s repertoire are the amazing cinnamon rolls, which we’re grateful aren’t buried in the usual sickly sweet frosting so we can taste that exquisite milky, buttery crumb and warm spices better. While they’re less sugary than most offerings elsewhere, we can’t say they’re entirely “guilt-free”, especially since we’ve brazenly hoovered up to three buns in one sitting ‘cos they’re so yummy. It’s especially surprising since Joyce confesses that she was never much of a baker before starting this business. We imagine these conjoined cake-shaped buns would make great birthday 'cakes' for cinnamon roll fiends, too. 

Order from https://www.guiltfreefood.com.sg. Available for pick-up — she is located in the East Coast Road area — or with islandwide delivery for $10.

Photos: Kelvin Chia

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