Pastry chef at a hospital: He bakes food for the soul

In this series, people from all walks of life offer an inside – and often unfiltered – take on their livelihoods and what keeps them going in their jobs. In this instalment, junior sous chef at a public hospital Aubrey Chiew tells us what it takes to marry French pastry techniques with local flavours – even as he ensures the bakes are soft enough for patients, as told to The Straits Times.

I am 31 years old, and this is my first work experience in the healthcare industry. I joined Alexandra Hospital in 2020 and I’ve been here for about five years. We make our pastries and cakes from scratch daily, and I am in charge of the daily afternoon tea, which we serve to patients at 2pm.

Our kitchen operations start at 5am to prepare breakfast, but my day starts in the second shift to prepare for patients’ tea break. There’s a menu on rotation to follow: Every week, we try to serve different types of pastries like Swiss rolls, banana cakes and chiffon cakes. I’ve helped develop more than 50 desserts during my time here. These are usually soft enough for most of our patients to enjoy.

It’s an acute hospital – for patients requiring sudden, active care – so we don’t have long-term stay patients. Those who need to stay longer would be transferred to a community hospital or hospice.

Previously, I worked at luxury hotels in Singapore like Sheraton Towers and Marriott. I joined a hospital because I wanted to experience a different side of pastry production, beyond commercial services. In hotels and cafes, the focus is often on speed, trends and volume. These taught me a lot about efficiency and consistency, and those places were where I learnt most of my skills.

In the hospital, the purpose feels deeper. It’s all about creating something that can comfort patients and support recovery. The biggest difference is the meaning behind the work. The only way to show what a chef can make is through our food.

The team's philosophy is that food is one way to uplift a patient’s hospital experience. When patients stay in a hospital, they're already feeling so down. We like to innovate, but it’s not just about impressing guests any more. I am always trying to be more thoughtful, especially when it comes to nutrition.

There are 21 kitchen workers, and even though my focus is on pastries, I also help with food preparation daily. For example, when we start preparing for dinner at about 3.30pm, I would typically be the last one in line to make sure that the rice, meat and vegetables served on the trays are good to go.

We have to be extra careful with hygiene, personal grooming and the labelling of expiry dates for our ingredients. We would not want our patients to fall sick further.

At a government hospital, we have strict procurement guidelines so our choice of suppliers and sources is limited. We can use only what we are allowed to use in healthcare. In commercial kitchens, we can get and source whatever we want. The second limitation is texture – whether it’s soft enough – and therapeutic nutrition, a diet plan prescribed by doctors and dietitians to manage patients’ conditions.

We don’t interact with patients every day, but sometimes, we go to the wards and get them to share what they like about the food and note what can be improved. We ask if the texture and temperature work for them. Sometimes, when they really enjoy the food, they would pass us a handwritten note.

My proudest moments are when my team trusts me with responsibility or when a patient or colleague gives simple positive feedback. It reminds me that I am doing a good job, and that effort and consistency matter.

In addition to tea breaks, patients can order a dessert of the day. So sometimes, we make chocolate cakes, tartlets, brownies and double chocolate cookies.

I like working with chocolate because we don’t have to add sugar. We just have to control the sweetness of the chocolate. For instance, I can work with 70 per cent dark chocolate instead.

I also enjoy working with butter and seasonal fruits because they are versatile and bring out a lot of flavour and character in desserts.

Now, I like to infuse flavours into our desserts. Recently, we had French chef Emmanuel Stroobant from Saint Pierre teach us the different ways to bring out natural flavours of ingredients, which I have not learnt before.

We infuse flavours into pastries through fats like cream or milk. So if we want to infuse herbs like rosemary or basil into, say, a chocolate mousse, we don’t just blend them. We would simmer sugar, cream, milk and the flavouring ingredients. Then we would strain out the herbs and pour the infused mixture to make the chocolate. We play around with different techniques to develop desserts.

Pastries must look fresh, and there are ways to add that gloss, such as glazing it with chocolate. Different chefs have their own way of decorating a cake. It’s very personal, and there’s no right or wrong. What matters is that the majority likes it.

I usually start by understanding the purpose — who the dessert is for, his or her dietary needs, and the occasion. Then I think about flavours, texture and balance.

We have to first understand what the patients can eat, and whether they are able to bite or chew the food.

We have a chart that we refer to – there’s normal, soft, chopped, minced and blended. For example, when we make red bean soup with sago, we would “step down” the texture for certain patients who can’t enjoy it as it is by straining out the red bean and removing the sago. If a product is too hard, we try to make it softer.

We have about 300 beds in the hospital, and we try to have as many of them be able to eat our desserts. But of course, not all of them can enjoy desserts because of their dietary restrictions.

Stroke patients or elderly patients with dysphagia, or difficulty in swallowing, can eat only minced or blended food. So they can’t eat bread, rice or noodles.

I work very closely with the hospital’s dietitians, and they would suggest reducing the amount of sugar used or replacing it with luo han guo (monk fruit) sweetener. But sometimes it cannot be used as a direct replacement because the texture and caramelisation of that sugar are not the same as cane sugar. So I find out what works through trial and error.

When we first started the kitchen team in 2020, the in-house dietitians and speech therapists vetted and checked our menus more frequently. Now, they are more familiar with our work, so the process has stabilised. For our festive menu, speech therapists decide on the texture of the food while dietitians analyse the recipes and taste-test them. Before setting up the in-house kitchen, food-making was outsourced to an external catering company.

I dropped out of an IT course in the Institute of Technical Education before going to hospitality and tourism school Shatec to study for a diploma. I was 17 years old. Then I went to Bangkok for a year to study at cooking school Le Cordon Bleu Dusit. I returned to Singapore and started my first full-time job at 21 with chocolate cafe Laurent Bernard.

An apprentice chef de patisserie typically earns $1,800 to $2,400 a month.

Initially, I was not clear on what I wanted to do. I didn’t grow up with a clear dream of becoming a pastry chef, but I gradually discovered my interest in it through hands-on experience and decided to focus on it. Once I started baking seriously, I realised I enjoyed the patience, precision and creativity involved. Over time, it snowballed from interest to passion.

I’m inspired by chefs who stay humble and consistent rather than just be famous figures, such as Barcelona-based pastry chef Ramon Morato. I like his ideas and philosophy. His style is very clean and not fanciful. I bought many of his books – one of which has his signature. His speciality is chocolate desserts. I also learn a lot from my seniors and colleagues in the kitchen.

I’m still learning and growing, so I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered a single speciality yet. But I’m particularly comfortable with items that require precision and consistency, such as pastries, breads and plated desserts. I take pride in getting the basics right.

For cooking, too, I want to make sure it is up to the benchmark.

Sometimes I attend online classes to see how other chefs prepare their signature dishes.

Different chefs focus on different things – for example, some specialise in 3D cakes, breads or chocolate and sugar showcases, using chocolate to shape different items. It depends on their interest and what they want to specialise in. Rarely do you have someone who really knows everything.

Even though I’ve made banana cakes so many times, I am still thinking about how I can make it better, softer and more flavourful for patients to enjoy. For every batch of cakes, I will intentionally make slight changes – for example, reducing or increasing the amount of an ingredient – just to see their effect on the dessert. Then I would write down what I have learnt. This has to be done a few times to “catch” the right sweetness and texture. Sometimes when I see something interesting on Instagram, I would try to recreate it and let my team try, provided that I have the ingredients.

I do small batches for testing purposes, make adjustments and gather feedback from my colleagues. Once finalised, I focus on consistency and execution so that every piece meets the same standard.

When I started out as a chef, I didn’t want to do any cooking and would just want to focus on pastries. Now that I am older, I try to learn everything as long as there are opportunities to do so. When I worked at a restaurant previously, the chef would sometimes ask me to make a cold dish or a pizza.

I kept thinking I was there to do pastries, not other things. In hindsight, I asked myself: Why didn’t I take the chance to learn then? I could then have gone further with my skills, understanding and knowledge. If you want to make quiche, for example, you have to cook the ingredients. There’s cooking involved in pastries too. For pizza, you have to cook the sauce.

In this job, you have to have a strong foundation in pastry-making and cooking or else, it would be difficult to analyse mistakes or what went wrong when one encounters an issue.

Some of the most unforgettable projects were high-pressure orders like festive production for Deepavali, Hari Raya, National Day, Christmas and Chinese New Year. For Christmas last year, we served our patients red velvet cakes and chocolate pudding infused with basil. This year, we have a chocolate mousse cake with raspberries.

Every year, I also have the opportunity to work on the 5kg anniversary cake for the hospital. It is exciting as we get to step outside our job routine and do something meaningful. It helps me to grow creatively and professionally.

Sometimes, we have to cook for large-scale events. Our kitchen also prepares food for events and for colleagues to enjoy, like tiramisu and bread pudding. We bake cakes for their birthday celebrations too.

Many people think pastry is just about decorating and making things look pretty, but there’s a lot of science, precision and physical work involved. Behind every beautiful pastry is a lot of preparation, failed trials and hard work.

The work involves patience, long hours, physical fatigue and maintaining consistency and accuracy under pressure and time constraints. Learning to stay calm and focused is an ongoing lesson.

Do you know why macarons are expensive? Because it’s sensitive to things like temperature and humidity, and without the right technique, it’s difficult to pull it off. But not all pastries are like that.

I believe in minimalist aesthetics and decoration for pastries. In Singapore, pastry-making is quite a niche industry – everyone knows everyone else.

My family members don’t really enjoy sweet pastries, but my colleagues and I often share what we have learnt and discuss what’s trending. Personally, I like eating classic cakes. My favourite is strawberry shortcake.

My dream job has evolved over time. It’s less about a title now, and more about becoming a reliable, skilled pastry chef who can be entrusted with any task.

Got an interesting job to share? Write in to us at ssharon@sph.com.sg.