Plain Vanilla

One place to go to if you have sweet tooth craving is Plain Vanilla Bakery at Holland Village. Only a recent discovery, I made a little trip there after a lunch at Provence bakery (also for the first time!) with my two crazy lovebird friends Collin and Feifan. I think we made for an interesting trio there because while I was the one busy snapping photos, FF was in her bubble looking around at the various cupcakes on display and Collin was knee-deep in a conversation with the owner about her recently opened enterprise (among other details which he was able to pry out with some *ahem* hidden charm). 
 
It's a fairly new bakery, having only opened late last year, but I do think (and hope!) it's going to be around for a long time. :) It's located on the 2nd floor at the row of shophouses opposite from Haagen Daaz and actually shares the floor space with a hair salon, so don't give up looking or be confused if you don't see a big sign pointing up to it. Actually, there IS a sign on the 2nd floor window but I only happened to notice it when I was in the store, Antipodean, right across the street from it. 
 
Left: Beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers to spruce up the interior of the tiny space! (Sadly, it IS tiny and there's no room for sitting down to eat their cupcakes so it's all take-away there. Hopefully one day they'll be able to expand into a larger bakery with seating space because they'd be a supremely popular one for sure. I can just imagine a ton of people coming in for tea and sitting,chatting,having a ball of a slow afternoon munching on soft, delishhh-cious cupcakes. 
Right: MMM lots of potential ingredients on display! Funny how they didn't make use of any of them in the cupcakes? Perhaps it really IS just a clever way of filling up space.
So we each took away quite a few and I remember taking flavors such as Lime, Vanilla, Milk Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Hazelnut... And ok hands down, all were REALLY GOOD. The cupcakes were soft and tasty and the cream cheese on top was not too sugary/excessive in quantity. The kind that you simply stuff into your mouth without really thinking about how unhealthy it probably is. 

Collin managed to find out a little about how this bakery was started up from the friendly female owner and in a nutshell, it's really a product of quite a big career switch (from Law to this!) and if you ask the owner (who's very sweet and friendly), I'm sure she'd tell you the same thing/more. Apparently the key to succeeding or at least getting your feet off the ground in a big career change like this is to work hard and have very supportive friends and family. Which is heartening, really. Because why shouldn't anyone have the chance to pursue something else in their life that they're really passionate about? Besides, I cling on to success stories like these a great deal because well, I'm hoping to at least try something different than the current career path I'm going on...for a few years at least... hopefully. If only real life started at 40 and we had all that time to work in different career fields/study and learn whatever we wanted before having to really decide on a job to settle down with and be serious about. Of course, in that ideal world, everyone would be rich and there would be no unhappiness in the world. Still wishing. 

Plain Vanilla 

34A Lorong Mambong

Holland Village

Singapore 277691

Here's their website and here's their facebook page!

Oh and before I forget, Collin managed to talk his way into getting a free peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie. Seriously, I need to learn some of those conversational skills! He reminds me of my grandma (dearest Ahpo <3) in that aspect. A conversation with anyone, anytime, anyplace. That cookie was BIG and FLAT and CHEWY and HOT and UMMMMMZ. So if you're lucky to be there when it's baked, maybe you can try your luck at getting one too. Or maybe they'll be selling more than just cupcakes then? :D