Charity brownies she baked during pandemic for school became an online business

Ms Megan Gay Jia Ying once had to bake more than 300 brownies in one weekend at home.

“I woke up super early and went to sleep super late, making sure I could finish baking everything,” she said.

Ms Gay, 21, was in her first year at Victoria Junior College in 2020 when the Covid-19 circuit breaker was enforced in Singapore. To keep herself busy, she made chocolatey treats for her friends, experimenting with different brownie recipes.

Eventually, she landed on a recipe that got her a lot of compliments from her friends – and eventually birthed MBakes.co, which stands for “Megan Bakes”.

“They all encouraged me to start selling (my brownies),” Ms Gay said.

When she had to start or take part in a Values in Action project in school, she saw the chance to use her brownies to raise funds for charitable causes.

During a five-month fund-raising campaign in 2021 from February to June, she donated all of her profits – $5,000 – to Make-A-Wish Singapore, a children’s charity organisation that grants the wishes of children aged three to 18 years old living with critical illnesses.

“I have a really soft spot for kids, as I used to go on mission trips each year to Cambodia and Myanmar with the church group Acts Singapore to play with and teach English to the kids there,” Ms Gay said.

The accountancy student at the National University of Singapore runs MBakes.co on the side, although the business is currently on a short break while she is on an overseas exchange programme in Poland.

She declined to reveal how much she makes selling brownies, but said she could bake up to 200 brownies in a regular week.

Her customer base largely consists of students who are her friends and friends of friends, so she tries to keep her prices as affordable as possible.

There are two varieties for sale: Nutella brownies are priced at $3 each and peanut butter brownies at $3.50 a piece. They are sold online at

https://mbakes.co

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in boxes of four, six or eight.

“Balancing MBakes.co with school is, honestly, quite a struggle. I study on weekdays and bake on the weekends – I collect orders until Friday and fulfil them on Saturday and Sunday,” said Ms Gay, who could spend the entire weekend baking if there are many orders.

Despite the time crunch and stress of running her own business, Ms Gay still loves baking. 

Moreover, the support from her friends keeps her going. “I expected my friends to order once to try (my brownies) and to support me, but it’s so heart-warming to see their names pop up in my order form again,” she said.

Ms Gay hopes to expand MBakes.co to a “full-time thing”, if she has the opportunity to do so.

“I want to be able to start my own dessert cafe in the future. I enjoy baking other goods, such as cookies and cupcakes, but I’m not in a position right now to dedicate all my time to baking,” she said.

“If I ever have more time in the future, I would love to expand my business that way.”