A vegan bakery - Love in Bread (Closed)

When it comes to vegan bread, I usually buy baguettes from Momo or Swiss Bake out of convenience. (Not so) recently, much to my delight, a vegan bakery, Loveinbread has opened in Singapore! But as usual it took me a long time to finally go check them out.

Everything on display look yummy. I bought 3 items during my first visit and followed with a number of other items in subsequent visits. I think I've tried almost every thing, except for a few items. Below are a list of bread and pastry I've tried.

Bread

 

Sunflower seeds and dates ($1.70): a bit crusty with small pieces of dates embedded within, adding a touch of sweetness to the bread bun. Though this is wholesome and tasty, unfortunately, I find that the size of the bun seems to be getting smaller in my subsequent purchases.

Chocolate almond bun ($1.90): among the 3 breads I bought, I like this most, with a prominent yet not overly dark chocolate flavour and bits of fragrant nuts to munch on. Same case as the sunflower seeds with dates, the bun seems to be getting smaller during my subsequent purchases.

Orange peel bun: This is a soft bun with marmalade jam filling. The good thing is that the marmalade is not overly sweet but it tastes pretty similar to spreading marmalade on bread.

Walnut raisin: Also a bit crusty, with raisins embedded within, but I prefer sunflower seeds with dates as the dates doesn't taste as sweet as the raisins (strange... shouldn't dates be sweeter?) Also, you probably can find walnut raisin in other bread shops while sunflower seeds with dates is more unique.

Hawaiian pizza ($4.90): has a strong milky taste which i don't like. Also, this is really oily. Only after I've eaten do I realise there is onion in the pizza, hence not suitable for Buddhist vegetarians.

Pastry

Raw tiramisu ($5.80): it consists of 3 layers, cocoa powder on top, cream in the middle and a coffee base. The ingredient list looks impressive and healthy, cashew, almond, macadamia nuts, cocoa and coffee. However, the cream is too thick to my liking. In the first place, I am not a fan of raw cashew, not sure what went on in my head when i chose this. But then, which vegan could resist a vegan tiramisu when its so hard to come by? Plus this version has no alcohol too. The base contains some raw nuts (tastes like almonds to me) which again I didn't like the combination of raw nuts and coffee. Think its probably just my taste buds, since I do see some positive comments on their facebook page for those who tried.

Muffins ($3.50 each): the chocolate almond muffin is not too sweet and has a nice texture and chocolate flavour. The banana walnut muffin also taste good, though slightly sweeter, but that's expected since bananas are naturally sweet. I would think that these are as tasty as muffins with eggs added and nobody will realise the absence of eggs in these muffins.

Cookies ($1.20 each): I didn't quite like their cookies. Not sure if its because I ate it only on the second day I bought. Both chocolate cookies and oatmeal cranberry cookies are too soft to me, though staff mentioned the former is a crispy cookie while the later is a chewy cookie. However, the chocolate cookie does have a nice chocolate flavour.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the items I've tried, just that the price is on the high side, so its not going to be a common day breakfast food.

Will go back to try the scones next time...

Update: Love in Bread has since ended operations.

Update after 2 years!

My last post was more than 2 years ago! After the episode of prolonged renovation, it was settling into the house, adapting to staying on my own, etc. There's always stuff to be busy with, a lot of ideas on my mind and things I want to do. Coffee remains my "interest" (still shooting coffee n cafes), but my latest interest is trying out vegan food eateries and doing vegan baking.

Late last year, I made the decision to stop dairy products and eggs. Though I have been a vegetarian for a number of years, and I've read about cruelty of eggs and milk production, for some reason, it took me really a very long time to make this decision, despite the feeling of guilt whenever I consume them. With an increasing intolerance towards dairy and eggs, after many incidents of stomach upset, I finally told myself, its time to stop.

It wasn't much of a problem when it comes to lunch and dinner, since I take mainly Chinese food and dairy is more of a western ingredient. But when it comes to vegan bread and pastry, its more challenging. For some strange reason, most bread out there contains dairy or eggs. I guess its expected that pastry contains eggs and dairy, but why bread? Eggs n dairy are not critical to make a nice loaf. Though some factory mass produced bread are vegan, I usually avoid them due to their unpleasant taste, which I suspect come from huge amount of preservatives. That leaves me with bakery shops, which over time, I know where and what to buy. They may not be cheap, but the options are slowly increasing, and one day, I will try making my own bread, one day...

the Kitchen

source unknown 

So inspired by these that I'm thinking of using black laminates for my kitchen cabinet.

And the layout is so similar to my place. Except that this doesn't have a stupid beam across the kitchen.

Am keeping the original stove cum sink black tiled tops. That sort of restricted my choice for materials. Here's my thought of what would likely look like a good choice.

Laminates from EDL

Are these too strong? I showed this to my contractor and he said, better clear with your mum. Surprisingly, my mum didn't raise any objection. I think she's sick of seeing me staring at the laminate catalogue every night.

Here's one of my kitchen sketches.  

Before I saw the black kitchen, I was thinking of using glossy off white laminates for the doors and frame, while the top will be still be black.

 

This is probably a safter choice?

More (messy) photos updates

To make something pretty, I guess you have to go through many ugly stages and processes.

After the floor hacking and removal of wires, its the erection of walls.

  

This is the greatest embarrassment. During the tiles selection stage, contractor recommended these for toilet and bathroom. I double confirmed with him that 30cm by 80cm tiles will look fine for a small space and he assured that they will look good. Two color choices also recommended by him.

 

When I first saw these, that night, I lost sleep and the following morning I called the contractor for an estimate to remove the tiles and change to smaller tiles. He went down to take a look and said they looked fine and especially easy to clean. In case lighting was bad when I went in the evening, I asked my mum to go down in day time to take a second look, and in the end I decided to just leave it. I showed a colleague who asked about house warming this picture and he suggested to lock up the toilet when guests visit!

Personally, I feel the following tiles look better. I found these at Rice Fields only after I have selected most of the tiles. After the earlier post on tiles selection, I had second thoughts of my living room floor tiles choice and couldn't resist going to Rice Fields.

Would take more photos when I manage to go down during day time.

What grout color should I use?

white? light grey? or dark grey for something dramatic?

on a side note, I like this look, dark grout with subway tiles.

image from Apartment Therapy

Unfortunately, my bathroom will look nothing near to this. Will post more photos of my house soon.

The Sofa

Its been 3 weeks since the reno started but progress is really slow. The house is still in an ugly state, raw cement, sand piled up, dust and dirt every where...

Hence, I rather talk about something nicer. Some time ago, I posted here a selection of sofa seats I like. When it comes to really hunting for one to put in my own house, strangely I sought for something rather different. Not that I couldn't find a replica chesterfield with a suitable depth, some how, this design has lost its appeal. Too much leather, and too heavy a look.

The Poeten sofa remains my top favourite, but price wise, its just way out and I believe not available in Singapore. How did something originally designed by Finn Juhl for his personal use became such an expensive item?

The closest style I could find and of reasonable pricing, are the sofas from Room of Woods. But some of the seats aren't quite comfortable for me.

Talking about Room of Woods, I'm going to slowly save some money for an armchair from them. These look so retro and cute!

 photos from Room of Woods

Back to the topic on sofa, you might have guessed by now that mid century post modern is my latest favourite theme. I like the piece below, found in a cafe in Taiwan. 

photo from here

I saw a similar piece at Second Charm and instantly fall in love with it.

photo from Second Charm

Again budget is an issue. Though second hand, its quite pricey (at least to me). But I guess its paying for the tedious restoration work and also getting something vintage...

Then I found this at Oddyssey for only $400 original condition! Doesn't this look familiar? Its almost like the sofa we grew up with. My mum's place still has something similar, but with a bit more frills and carvings. This piece just need a change of cover and some restoration work to cover up some scratches. Not sure if it could look as good as new for a reasonable restoration cost or I could live with some blemishes though. But the simple curves of the frame, matt black finishing... So lovely. (Try to imagine it in a different fabric.) 

photo from Oddyssey

After much consideration and popping by various shops, in the end, I chose a piece I saw earlier at Air. Surprised? Guess I took the easy way out as I do have a few more pieces to restore and not quite sure if I could cope.

picture from Air Furniture

This is quite different, but also a style I like and the depth is just right. Hope I don't regret on the choice of fabric. Took quite some time to decide between dark grey and cherry brown. In the end I settled for cherry brown...

House update - 31st July 2012

I think the pattern on the right would look nice on cabinet doors, while something equivalent but less colorful would make nice floor tiles for kitchen.

I think these are more peranakan?

I'm inclined to a mix of post modern mid century style, scandinavia and retro style, but when it comes to materials selection, I couldn't really find something along that line and fit my budget at the same time.

What've I actually selected.

I've focused on neutral tones, to the extend of risking being conservative and boring. But I think my greatest nightmare would be to end up with a contemporary style.

If I do not have a budget issue, I would love to get my tiles from Rice. Click here for some nostagic materials.