# ovenmarvel.com: full text > Plain-text version of the main pages of https://ovenmarvel.com, a fan tribute to Oven Marvel (Sunshine Plaza, Singapore, closed 2022). Last updated October 2026. Note: ovenmarvel.com is a fan tribute. Oven Marvel, Chef Johnny Ngiam and the shop's former owners have not endorsed it and take no part in it, and you cannot buy their pies here. --- # The Oven Marvel story, from Delicious Muffins to the last batch URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/the-oven-marvel-story/ Quick answer: Oven Marvel was a one-shop takeaway bakery on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, run by pastry chef Johnny Ngiam, formerly of a Hilton hotel kitchen. It was blogged as Delicious Muffins in January 2009, traded as Oven Marvel by 2013, sold only chicken pies, curry puffs and muffins, and closed in early 2022. ## What was Oven Marvel? Oven Marvel was a small takeaway bakery on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, the building at 91 Bencoolen Street in Singapore, near what is now Bencoolen MRT station (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). It sold three things and only three things: chicken pies, curry puffs and muffins (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). The chicken pie made its name. It was flat, round and built from puff pastry made in the shop with butter, around a peppery, creamy chicken filling. Oven Marvel was never a chain. Every review, listing and news report we could find points to one shop at one address. If you remember an Oven Marvel somewhere else, I would genuinely like to hear about it, but nothing in the public record supports a second outlet. ## When did Oven Marvel open? The honest answer is that nobody has published an opening date. The earliest dated evidence is a blog post by Leslie Tay on ieatishootipost, first published on 11 January 2009 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). At that point the shop already existed, but under a different name. A 2022 article about the closure says the bakery had been in Bencoolen "since the early millennium" (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed), which may well be right, but it gives no year and no source. So this site says "by 2009 at the latest" and leaves it there. ## Why was it first called Delicious Muffins? In January 2009 the shop at Sunshine Plaza traded as **Delicious Muffins**, and the 2009 post lists it at unit #01-51 with a chicken pie at about S$2.80 and a curry puff at S$2 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). The name fitted one third of the menu. Leslie Tay later explained the change with a shrug that most of us would recognise: buying chicken pies and curry puffs from a shop called Delicious Muffins was a bit funny. By his second visit, written up on 13 August 2013, the sign said Oven Marvel (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Some blogs also give a Chinese name, 皇冠烘培, which reads roughly as "crown baking" (mitsueki.sg, https://mitsueki.sg/2013/12/28/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza/). The rename therefore happened some time between January 2009 and August 2013. No source pins it down further. ## Who was Chef Johnny Ngiam? The person behind the pies was **Chef Johnny Ngiam**. According to Leslie Tay, he had been a pastry chef all his working life, and his last job before opening his own small bakery at Sunshine Plaza was as pastry chef at a Hilton hotel (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). SETHLUI.com repeats the Hilton background in its 2020 review (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), and a Burpple reviewer in 2014 describes the shop as owned by an ex-chef of the Hilton (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Those last two probably drew on the same story, so I count them as corroboration rather than independent proof. That is, truthfully, almost everything the public record says about him. He made the pastry himself, in the shop, from scratch (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). In June 2017 a Burpple reviewer glimpsed a middle-aged chef laminating pastry in the tiny kitchen while an older woman peeled potatoes by hand (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Nobody else who worked there is named in any source I trust, so I name nobody else. I have no inside knowledge, never knew the family, and have not tried to reach them. If they ever read this and want anything changed, the address on the [share a memory page](/share-a-memory/) reaches me. ## The Oven Marvel timeline - By early 2009A shop called Delicious Muffins is trading on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza. The first dated review appears on 11 January 2009. (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/) - 2009 to 2013The shop is renamed Oven Marvel. The exact date is unknown. - 13 Aug 2013Leslie Tay's second post, now under the Oven Marvel name, scores it 4.75 out of 5 and names Chef Johnny Ngiam. (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/) - Dec 2013 to 2016A steady run of personal blog reviews, from mitsueki to springtomorrow, slowchomp and umakemehungry. (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html) - 2014Regulars pre-order in person and pay cash. (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews) - Around 2018A reviewer notes a move to a bigger unit a few doors away. Unit numbers in the sources are inconsistent, so treat this one loosely. (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews) - 18 Jun 2019Oven Marvel appears in Miss Tam Chiak's blind pie taste test, at S$4 a pie. (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/) - Apr 2020SETHLUI.com lists the pie at S$4 and opening hours from about midday to 8pm. (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/) - May 2021The last review we found from a customer while the shop was open: a muffin, on Burpple. (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews) - Mid-March 2022The closure is reported on 17 March 2022. The owners reportedly retired. (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed) ## What was it like to buy a pie there? The shop was small and plain, mostly takeaway with a table or two, and reviewers agree there was no decoration worth describing (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). What gave it away was the smell. Several people mention the scent of butter pastry before they reached the counter (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). The practical details are what regulars remember most: - **Cash only.** Reviewers mention it repeatedly (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). - **Small batches.** Pies came out a tray at a time and sold out. One blogger found things gone by 1.45pm on some days (mitsueki.sg, https://mitsueki.sg/2013/12/28/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza/), and a 2017 reviewer found no pies left at 7.15pm (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). - **Pre-ordering.** In 2014 people pre-ordered in person (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). By the end, phone orders were heavy enough that a walk-in customer could leave with nothing (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). - **The bag.** Pies went into a brown or oil-paper bag that turned translucent with butter on the way back to the office (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). - **Rest days.** In its earlier years the shop closed on the 8th, 18th and 28th of each month. The small calendar on the [home page](/) has fun with that habit. > Memory, not a source: I used to time my walk from Bencoolen so that I passed the shop right after a tray came out. It did not always work. The day it did, the bag was too hot to hold properly and I ate half the pie standing up, which is still how I think it should be eaten. ## How did Oven Marvel end? In mid-March 2022, people noticed a closed sign. Great Deals Singapore reported the closure on 17 March 2022, relaying what members of the Hawkers United Facebook group said after phoning the shop: the owners had retired because of old age (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). Leslie Tay updated his 2013 post the same day to say the place had closed (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Google Maps marked it permanently closed. The retirement reason is second-hand. The owners were not quoted anywhere I could find, and the exact last day of trading is not on record. There is more on this in [what happened to Oven Marvel](/what-happened-to-oven-marvel/). ## What the record does not tell us Quite a lot, it turns out. We do not know the year the shop opened, who opened it, exactly when it changed its name, what the sign looked like, or whether there was ever a slogan. We do not have the recipe. Nobody has published it, and this site never pretends otherwise: the pies in the [recreation kitchen](/recreations/) are my own attempts, guided by what reviewers wrote. The full list of open questions, with a confidence rating for every claim, is on [what we know and what we do not](/what-we-know/). ## FAQ **Was Oven Marvel formerly called Delicious Muffins?** Yes. Leslie Tay's first post about the shop, dated 11 January 2009, calls it Delicious Muffins. By his second post in August 2013 it was trading as Oven Marvel. The exact date of the rename is not recorded in any source we found. **Who owned Oven Marvel?** The chef-owner named in the sources is Johnny Ngiam, a career pastry chef whose last hotel role was pastry chef at a Hilton. Other helpers in the shop are mentioned by reviewers but never named, so this site names only him. **How many Oven Marvel outlets were there?** One. Every source places it at Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street. We found no evidence of any branch, kiosk or franchise elsewhere in Singapore. --- # What the Oven Marvel chicken pie tasted like URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/oven-marvel-chicken-pie/ Quick answer: The Oven Marvel chicken pie was a flat, round, single-serve pie with puff pastry top and bottom, made in the shop with butter. Inside: chicken thigh cooked until just tender, peas, onion, carrot and soft potato in a medium-thick, peppery homemade bechamel. Some remember corn. There was no egg. It was best eaten warm from a grease-spotted paper bag. ## What did the Oven Marvel chicken pie look like? The Oven Marvel chicken pie was flat. Not a little low: properly flat, a single-serve round disc with a sheet of puff pastry on top and another underneath (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Miss Tam Chiak's tasters noted that it looked flat (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/), and Leslie Tay recorded Facebook commenters complaining that it was too flat and nothing like a British pie (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). If you grew up with tall, domed bakery pies, the first sight of it was a small surprise. Then you bit into it, and the shape stopped mattering. The top baked to a deep, even gold. One blogger called the pastry golden, crisp and delicate (springtomorrow, https://www.springtomorrow.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza-the-best-chicken-pies-in-singapore/). Around the rim you could see the layers, stacked like the pages of a paperback left out in the rain and then dried in an oven. ## What was the pastry like? The pastry was puff pastry made in the shop, and it was made with butter (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). That is the single most important fact on this page. Leslie Tay picked it out in 2013: the aroma was butter, not the waxy smell of margarine or hydrogenated fat, and he was surprised by how little oil had pooled under the pie. Reviewers describe two textures in the same bite, and they agree with each other across eleven years: - **The top** was crisp and shattered. SETHLUI.com described it as crisp on top (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), and slowchomp wrote of thin, fragrant pastry that seemed to melt away (slowchomp, http://slowchomp.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza/). - **The inside layers** were soft and slightly chewy, because they had soaked up the sauce. Leslie Tay noticed it in 2009, describing a pastry that was not overly flaky but light and buttery, with a chewy inner layer that had absorbed the filling (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). Miss Tam Chiak's tasters found the same thing ten years later: gravy soaked into the inner layers (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). That contrast, crackle then give, is what I chase in every [recreation attempt](/recreation-log/). It is also the reason I think "not over-flaky" is a compliment. A pastry that is all flake and no chew would have shattered into your lap and told you nothing about the filling. ## What was in the filling? The filling was a creamy chicken mixture bound with a homemade bechamel, the French white sauce of butter, flour and milk (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Here is what each source recorded: The filling, ingredient by ingredient | Element | What was recorded | Recorded by | Chicken | Thigh meat in chunks, cooked slowly until the fibres just begin to separate | Leslie Tay 2013; "chunky chicken" in 2009 | Sauce | Homemade bechamel, creamy, medium-thick, flowing slowly when cut | Leslie Tay; SETHLUI.com; springtomorrow | Pepper | Peppery, by almost every account; "white peppery" in one | Most reviewers; Burpple 2017 | Peas | Sweet, tender, no tough skins | Leslie Tay; Miss Tam Chiak | Onion and carrot | Present, small dice | Leslie Tay; Miss Tam Chiak | Potato | Soft, from cubes to partly mashed | SETHLUI.com; slowchomp; springtomorrow; Burpple 2017 | Sweet corn | Remembered by some, not all | Two Burpple reviewers (2014, 2017) | Egg | Not mentioned by anyone | No source A few details deserve a closer look. **The chicken was thigh, not breast.** Leslie Tay described the meat being cooked slowly until its fibres just start to come apart, before the sauce goes in (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Thigh stays moist through a second cooking in the oven, which breast rarely does. **The potato is where memories diverge.** SETHLUI.com describes chunks (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). A 2017 Burpple reviewer remembered a mashed and smashed potato filling (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Both can be true. Potato cubes simmered in a thick sauce soften at the edges and break down a little more every time the pie is reheated. In my recreations I dice it small and let some of it collapse. **Corn is a maybe.** Two Burpple reviewers mention sweet corn, in 2014 and 2017. Leslie Tay and Miss Tam Chiak do not. Recipes change over thirteen years, and memories blur, so this site says "some remember corn" and leaves it out of the flagship recipe while suggesting it as an option. **It leaned a little sweet.** Two reviewers describe the filling as a little sweet, one of them alongside the white pepper (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Sweet peas, onion cooked gently, carrot and corn (if it was there) would all push it that way. **There was no egg.** No reviewer mentions one, and that absence matters, because half a hard-boiled egg is the calling card of many old-school Singapore chicken pies. There is a good explainer on [why so many Singapore chicken pies carry half an egg](https://donchickenpie.com/blog/why-singapore-chicken-pie-has-a-boiled-egg/); the Oven Marvel pie simply did without, one more way it differed from the domed bakery kind. In its place was the peppery bechamel that the guide to [white pepper in chicken pie](/technique/white-pepper/) tries to explain. ## How peppery was it? Peppery enough that nearly every review mentions it, and pleasant enough that nobody complains. The heat was the warm, back-of-the-throat kind that white pepper gives, rather than the sharp bite of black. A 2017 reviewer used exactly that phrase, white peppery (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Leslie Tay connected the pie's character to a Hainanese touch, which he felt made it distinctly Singaporean (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). My own guess, labelled clearly as a guess, is that the pepper was doing the job a stock cube does in lesser pies: carrying the flavour through a rich, mild sauce. There is a whole page on [white pepper](/technique/white-pepper/). ## Was it greasy? It depends on whom you ask, and I think both camps were right. Leslie Tay was struck by how little oil pooled under the pie (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). A reader commenting on his post, who carried a pie back to the office, found the paper bag soaked through and felt the flat shape held too little filling. Miss Tam Chiak's team also saw an oil-drenched bag (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). All-butter puff pastry does that. Warm butter migrates. A pie eaten at the counter leaves a few spots; a pie that travels fifteen minutes in a closed paper bag leaves a map. The grease-spotted bag became the most reported physical memory of Oven Marvel, which is why it is the motif of this whole site. ## How big was it, and was it enough? It was an individual pie, sized for one person as a snack. Opinions on value split along the usual lines. A 2018 Burpple reviewer wished the portion were bigger for the price (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews), while umakemehungry wrote that one was never enough (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html), which I take as the same complaint delivered as a compliment. At S$2.80 around 2009, rising to S$4 by 2018, it was never the cheapest pie in Singapore. The [price page](/oven-marvel-prices-2009-2022/) tracks every reported price. ## How did it make people feel? This is the part no source can prove, so I will keep it short. Leslie Tay said it reminded him of the neighbourhood bakery pies of his childhood, while admitting that he had never eaten one exactly like it, and he liked it best with a cup of teh tarik (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). The slowchomp reviewer compared it to something a grandmother might make, a taste that made them think of "the good olden days" (slowchomp, http://slowchomp.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza/). > Memory, not a source: For me it tasted like a reward for a bad Tuesday. I am aware that is not a flavour note. The nearest I can get in cooking terms: hot butter first, then a soft wave of pepper, then the sweetness of the peas coming through last, and a slightly salty, slightly chewy layer of pastry stuck to the roof of my mouth. ## Could you reheat it? Yes, and the shop said so. In 2016 the staff advised refrigerating leftovers and letting them stand for 10 to 15 minutes before reheating (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). A 2017 reviewer said it reheated well in a toaster oven (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). My full method for any puff pastry pie, with food-safe temperatures, is on [reheating puff pastry pies without sogginess](/technique/reheating-puff-pastry-pies/). ## Can you still buy it? No. Oven Marvel closed in early 2022, and its recipe was never published. If you want something to eat this week, I have put together [chicken pies you can buy in Singapore today](/where-to-get-a-chicken-pie-like-that-today/), with an honest note on how each one differs. If you want the closest thing to the real memory, you will have to bake it, and the [flagship recreation recipe](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) is where I would start. ## FAQ **Was the Oven Marvel chicken pie made with puff pastry or shortcrust?** Puff pastry. Every detailed review describes a flaky, buttery puff pastry made in the shop, with a sheet on the top and the bottom. Several reviewers contrast it with the shortcrust British-style pies most people expect. **Did the Oven Marvel chicken pie have egg in it?** No source mentions egg in the Oven Marvel chicken pie. Leslie Tay even suggested a quarter of hard-boiled egg would have improved the curry puff, which tells you the shop did not use one. Egg is a feature of some other old-school Singapore pies, not this one. **Why was the Oven Marvel pie so flat?** Nobody recorded the chef's reasoning. The flat shape is well documented: Miss Tam Chiak noted it looked flat, and Facebook commenters on Leslie Tay's post complained it was flatter than a British pie. A flat pie has more pastry for its size, which suits a shop whose pride was its pastry. That last point is my inference, not a sourced fact. **Why did the Oven Marvel chicken pie taste so peppery?** Almost every reviewer calls the filling peppery, and one Burpple reviewer specifically says white peppery. White pepper is the warm, slightly floral heat behind many Hainanese-influenced Singapore dishes, which may be what Leslie Tay meant by the pie's Hainanese touch. --- # What we know about Oven Marvel, and what we do not URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/what-we-know/ Quick answer: Well documented: Oven Marvel was one shop on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, run by ex-Hilton pastry chef Johnny Ngiam, earlier named Delicious Muffins, selling flat all-butter puff chicken pies, curry puffs and muffins, closed in early 2022. Unknown: its opening year, exact rename date, the recipe, and an official reason for closing. No evidence links it to Don Pie. ## How this page works Everything on ovenmarvel.com sorts into two piles. **Sourced facts** come from a dated blog post, review or news report that I have read, and each one carries a link so you can read it too. **Memories** are mine. They appear in a marked box, they are there for colour, and they never carry the weight of a fact. When I could not read a source myself, such as a login-gated forum thread, I say so and cite nothing from it (HardwareZone Forums, https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/oven-marvel-in-sunshine-plaza-known-for-tasty-chicken-pies-closed-for-good-owners-retired-due-to-old-age.6717808/). The table below sorts the claims you will meet about Oven Marvel into five statuses: - **Confirmed**: several sources agree, or one detailed first-hand source says it plainly. - **Reported**: a source says it, but second-hand or with a caveat. - **Conflicting**: sources disagree with each other. - **Unverified**: someone says it, nobody shows it. - **Not supported**: the claim circulates, but the evidence points the other way or does not exist. Use the buttons to filter the table. On a phone it scrolls sideways. [Interactive EvidenceTable on the web page] ## What is solid The core story is unusually well documented for a one-unit takeaway. Leslie Tay wrote about the shop twice, in 2009 and 2013, with enough detail to describe the pastry, the filling and the chef (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/) (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Burpple holds seven years of short reviews, from 2014 to 2021 (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Miss Tam Chiak put the pie through a blind tasting in 2019 (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/), SETHLUI.com reviewed it in 2020 (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), and the closure was reported in March 2022 (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). Those sources agree on the address, the tiny menu, the all-butter puff pastry, the flat shape, the chicken thigh and bechamel filling, and the end. ## Where the sources disagree Three disagreements matter, and none of them is dramatic. **Price in 2014.** A Burpple review from April 2014 gives S$4.30; springtomorrow in June 2014 gives S$3.80 (springtomorrow, https://www.springtomorrow.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza-the-best-chicken-pies-in-singapore/). Every later source until 2018 says S$3.80, which makes me suspect the higher figure was a different item or a typo, but I cannot prove it. The [price page](/oven-marvel-prices-2009-2022/) shows both. **Grease.** Leslie Tay saw very little oil; a reader of his post and Miss Tam Chiak both saw an oil-soaked bag. I think this is a question of time in the bag rather than a contradiction, and I explain why on [what the chicken pie tasted like](/oven-marvel-chicken-pie/). **Corn and potato.** Potato appears in four sources with different textures. Corn appears only in two Burpple reviews. So the flagship recreation includes potato and offers corn as an option. ## What nobody has recorded These are genuine gaps, not modesty: 1. **The opening year.** The earliest dated evidence is January 2009. One later article says "since the early millennium" without a source (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). 2. **The date of the rename** from Delicious Muffins to Oven Marvel, beyond "between 2009 and 2013". 3. **The recipe.** No quantities, no oven temperature, no method has been published. 4. **The signage, logo or any slogan.** I found no description of any of them. 5. **An official reason for closing.** The retirement story comes from netizens who phoned the shop. 6. **What forum and Facebook regulars said.** The main HardwareZone thread was login-gated, and Facebook groups were not searchable. 7. **Any newspaper coverage.** The national newspaper archive could not be searched for this research, so print coverage remains unchecked. If you can fill any of these gaps with something checkable, a dated receipt, a photo you took, a newspaper clipping, please use the [share a memory page](/share-a-memory/). I will credit it the way you ask and mark it clearly as reader-supplied. ## The myths, and why they are wrong **"Oven Marvel and Don Pie were connected."** This one surfaces now and then. I looked hard. Don Pie was founded by Chef Don Lim, who started baking Hainanese-style pies for a staff canteen in the 1980s and opened his first shop at Far East Square around 2000 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/chicken-pie-kitchen-dons-signature-crab-bee-hoon-the-don-is-back/). Anyone who wants the rest of that story can follow [a dated Don Pie timeline](https://donpies.com/what-happened-to-don-pie/) published by a sister site; nothing in it touches Sunshine Plaza. Oven Marvel was Chef Johnny Ngiam's shop at Sunshine Plaza. None of the Oven Marvel sources mention Don Lim or Don Pie, none of the Don Pie sources mention Oven Marvel or Johnny Ngiam, and in 2019 Miss Tam Chiak tasted both as rivals (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). The pies were also built differently: Don's pies are known for half a hard-boiled egg inside, and Oven Marvel's had no egg at all. They are two separate businesses, and this site treats them that way. **"It was a 1980s bakery."** It feels like one, which is a compliment to the pie. The evidence starts in 2009. If your memory of Oven Marvel is from 1990, it is probably a memory of a different shop, possibly a neighbourhood bakery with the tall, domed puff pastry pies Leslie Tay remembers from his own childhood (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). **"It sold sourdough and wood-fired pizza."** An auto-generated web page says this. It contradicts every real review, so I have not linked it. **"Somebody has the original recipe."** Perhaps somebody does. Nobody has published it. > Memory, not a source: My memories of the shop are real but they are one person's, from a few visits a year over several years, and I was not taking notes. Where my memory and a dated source disagree, the source wins. Where I remember something no source mentions, I either leave it out or put it in a box like this one. ## FAQ **Is there any connection between Oven Marvel and Don Pie?** None that we could find. Oven Marvel was run by Chef Johnny Ngiam at Sunshine Plaza; Don Pie was founded by Chef Don Lim in the CBD; its pies are baked today under the DonChef name. Their pastry styles differ, and Miss Tam Chiak's 2019 taste test lists them as separate competitors. Treat them as entirely separate businesses. **Are there any real photos of Oven Marvel on this site?** No. Every photograph on ovenmarvel.com is an illustration made for this site. None shows the real shop, the real chef or a real Oven Marvel pie. For real photos, the original blog posts linked on the sources page are the place to look. **Why can't I find Oven Marvel on Google Maps?** Because it closed. Listings for the Sunshine Plaza shop were marked permanently closed after the closure was reported in March 2022. --- # The curry puff and the muffins URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/oven-marvel-curry-puff-and-muffins/ Quick answer: Besides chicken pies, Oven Marvel sold only curry puffs and muffins. The curry puff used the same house-made butter puff pastry around waxy potato fried in curry powder the chef ground himself, with diced chicken and no egg. The muffins, from banana walnut to double chocolate chip, were the original trade: the shop began as Delicious Muffins. ## What else did Oven Marvel sell? Two things. Oven Marvel's whole menu was chicken pies, curry puffs and muffins (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). No sausage rolls, no egg tarts, no cakes, no drinks worth mentioning. A small menu is usually a sign of a kitchen that knows exactly what it is good at, and this one was good at pastry. ## What was the Oven Marvel curry puff like? The Oven Marvel curry puff was a puff pastry curry puff, made with the same house-made butter pastry as the pie (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). That alone set it apart. Most Singapore curry puffs are either the thick, short, crimped kind or the spiral-layered "karipap pusing" style, deep-fried. This one was a bakery curry puff: flaky and buttery rather than crunchy. The filling was curried potato with small pieces of chicken. Leslie Tay recorded how the potatoes were handled: the waxy local kind, boiled first in their skins, then peeled, diced and fried in a curry powder that the chef ground himself (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). That method matters. Boiling potatoes whole keeps them firm, so they hold their shape when fried, and a waxy potato stays in cubes instead of turning into mash. Home-ground curry powder usually means fresher, more aromatic spice than a sachet. There was **no egg**. Leslie Tay said a quarter of a hard-boiled egg would have made it perfect (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), which is as clear a record as you could want that it did not come with one. Egg in a curry puff is a common Singapore preference, so this was a deliberate difference, or simply the chef's taste. ## How much was a curry puff? Reviewers recorded roughly **S$2** around 2009 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/), **S$2.50** in 2013 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/) and **S$2.80** from 2014 through 2020 (slowchomp, http://slowchomp.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza/) (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). It was the cheap way in: if the pies had sold out, the curry puffs sometimes had not. ## Was the curry puff as good as the pie? Opinions differ, and the reviews are thinner. The mitsueki visit in December 2013 only managed the muffin and the curry puff, which tells you something about how early the pies could run out (mitsueki.sg, https://mitsueki.sg/2013/12/28/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza/). Reviewers liked it; few raved about it the way they did about the pie. > Memory, not a source: I liked the curry puff more than I admitted at the time. It was milder than a hawker curry puff and much richer, because of the butter. If the chicken pie was the reason to queue, the curry puff was the reason to buy two of something. ## Why did a pie shop sell muffins? Because it started as a muffin shop. In January 2009 the Sunshine Plaza unit traded as **Delicious Muffins** (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). At some point before August 2013 the name changed to Oven Marvel, partly because, as Leslie Tay put it, buying chicken pies and curry puffs from a shop called Delicious Muffins was a bit funny (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). The muffins stayed on the menu to the end. In fact, the last review I found from a customer while the shop was still open, in May 2021, was about a muffin (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). ## What muffin flavours were there? Reviewers between 2018 and 2020 name five (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews) (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/): - **Banana Walnut** - **Apple Raisin** - **Orange Peel** - **Choco'Wanna**, a chocolate muffin by its name - **Double Chocolate Chip**, the one Burpple reviewers return to most often They cost roughly **S$2.20 to S$2.80** in that period (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). Reviewers describe them baked fresh, with a crisp top and a moist inside (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). That crisp top is a giveaway of a fairly hot oven and a batter that is not too wet, which is how I bake my [banana walnut muffins](/recreations/banana-walnut-muffins/) and [double chocolate chip muffins](/recreations/double-chocolate-chip-muffins/). ## How are the curry puff and the chicken pie different? They shared the pastry and the oven, and almost nothing else. Two pastries, one kitchen | | Chicken pie | Curry puff | Pastry | House-made butter puff, top and bottom | The same pastry, folded over | Shape | Flat round disc | Half-moon parcel | Sauce | Peppery bechamel | No white sauce; potato fried in curry powder | Chicken | Thigh, in chunks | Diced | Vegetables | Peas, onion, carrot, potato; some remember corn | Waxy potato | Egg | None | None | Reported price, 2018 to 2020 | S$4.00 | S$2.80 That table compares one shop's two pastries. The wider question of [chicken pie vs curry puff](https://donchickenpie.com/chicken-pie-vs-curry-puff/) as Singapore snacks, with their usual shapes, pastries and fillings side by side, is answered at more length on a sister site. What made Oven Marvel's pair unusual is that both used the same house-made butter puff, the subject of [why Oven Marvel used puff pastry, not shortcrust](/why-puff-pastry-not-shortcrust/). ## Can I make them at home? Yes, with the caveat that runs through this whole site: nobody has published the shop's recipes, so these are my recreations, built from the descriptions above. Start with the [curry puff recreation](/recreations/curry-puff/), which uses the same [rough puff pastry](/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/) as my chicken pie. The muffins are easier and quicker, and a good way to make an afternoon feel like a ground-floor detour on Bencoolen Street. ## FAQ **What was in the Oven Marvel curry puff?** Curried potato with diced chicken, in the same butter puff pastry as the chicken pie. Leslie Tay recorded that the chef boiled waxy local potatoes in their skins, peeled and diced them, then fried them in a curry powder he ground himself. **Did the Oven Marvel curry puff have egg?** No. Leslie Tay wrote that a quarter of a hard-boiled egg would have made it perfect, which tells you the shop did not include one. **What muffin flavours did Oven Marvel sell?** Reviewers between 2018 and 2020 name Banana Walnut, Apple Raisin, Orange Peel, a chocolate muffin called Choco'Wanna and Double Chocolate Chip. The chocolate chip comes up most often as a favourite on Burpple. **How much was an Oven Marvel curry puff?** About S$2 around 2009, S$2.50 in 2013 and S$2.80 from 2014 to 2020, according to reviewers. These are reported prices, not an official list. --- # The price of a pie, 2009 to 2022 URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/oven-marvel-prices-2009-2022/ Quick answer: Reviewers reported the Oven Marvel chicken pie at about S$2.80 around 2009, S$3.50 in 2013, S$3.80 from 2014 to 2017 (one 2014 review says S$4.30) and S$4.00 from 2018 to 2020. The curry puff went from about S$2 to S$2.80. These are prices people recorded, not an official list. [Interactive PriceTimeline on the web page] ## Where do these prices come from? Every price on this page was written down by a reviewer who bought the pie. None of it comes from an official price list, because no menu board or receipt survives in any source I could find. That matters in two ways. First, a reviewer might misremember or mistype. Second, a price in a blog post can be edited years later. The January 2009 post that gives S$2.80 was revised in 2015 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/), so the safest way to describe that figure is "reported around 2009". ## How did the price change over the years? Reported prices, chicken pie and curry puff | When | Chicken pie | Curry puff | Reported by | Around Jan 2009 (as Delicious Muffins) | S$2.80 | S$2.00 | ieatishootipost | Aug 2013 | S$3.50 | S$2.50 | ieatishootipost | Apr to Jun 2014 | S$4.30 or S$3.80 (sources conflict) | S$2.80 | Burpple; springtomorrow | 2015 to 2017 | S$3.80 | S$2.80 | slowchomp; umakemehungry; Burpple | Apr 2018 to Apr 2020 | S$4.00 | S$2.80 | Burpple; Miss Tam Chiak; SETHLUI.com | Mar 2022 | Closed | Great Deals Singapore Read as a line, the chicken pie rose from about S$2.80 to S$4.00 over roughly a decade: S$1.20, or a little over 40 per cent. Most of that rise happened early, between 2009 and 2014. After that the price barely moved. S$3.80 held for about four years and S$4 for the last few years on record. The shop's name changed during the same stretch, from Delicious Muffins to Oven Marvel, which [the Oven Marvel story](/the-oven-marvel-story/) dates as closely as the sources allow. ## What about the 2014 puzzle? Two sources from the same spring disagree. A Burpple review in April 2014 gives S$4.30 (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). In June 2014, springtomorrow gives S$3.80 (springtomorrow, https://www.springtomorrow.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza-the-best-chicken-pies-in-singapore/), and every source for the next three years agrees with S$3.80 (slowchomp, http://slowchomp.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza/) (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). A price that rises to S$4.30, falls to S$3.80 for four years and then rises to S$4 is possible but odd. A typo, or a reviewer adding up two items, seems more likely. I cannot prove either, so the price-tag string above shows both numbers on one tag, flagged. ## How much were the muffins? Between 2018 and 2020 reviewers list muffins at roughly **S$2.20 to S$2.80**, depending on the flavour (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/) (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). I found no reliable muffin prices for the earlier years. ## Was it good value? That depends on what you compare it with, and on how hungry you were. Miss Tam Chiak's 2019 blind tasting is the best snapshot: Oven Marvel cost S$4 in a line-up that included pies costing noticeably more and heartland bakery pies costing less (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). Within the shop's own reviews, the complaints were about size, not price. A 2018 reviewer wished the pie were bigger for what it cost (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews), while umakemehungry felt one was never enough, which is arguably the same opinion (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). > Memory, not a source: I always paid with exact change because the shop was cash only and I did not want to hold up the queue. Four dollar coins in my pocket, warm by the time I got there. That was the whole budget for joy on a Thursday. ## What would it cost today? There is no honest answer to that. The shop closed in early 2022 (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed), and inventing a "today" price would only add noise to a record that is already a little noisy. For context only: chicken pies in Singapore in 2026 range from under S$2 at a few heartland bakeries to about S$9 for a premium single-serve pie, according to my research for [where to get a chicken pie like that today](/where-to-get-a-chicken-pie-like-that-today/), where every price is marked "as of October 2026, check before you go". For the wider market, Pie Singapore keeps a guide to [pie prices in Singapore](https://piesingapore.com/pie-prices-singapore/), from heartland bakery pies to whole pies for a party. None of those numbers tells you what [the Oven Marvel chicken pie](/oven-marvel-chicken-pie/) would cost now, but they show where S$4 used to sit. ## Why do the curry puff prices move less? The curry puff went from about S$2 around 2009 to S$2.50 in 2013 and S$2.80 from 2014 onwards (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/) (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). It then stayed at S$2.80 for six years in every review. I suspect it was simply the item the shop treated as its entry ticket, cheap enough to grab on the way past. That is a guess. The documented fact is that it never moved after 2014. ## FAQ **How much was an Oven Marvel chicken pie?** S$4 in its last reported years (2018 to 2020). Earlier reviewers recorded about S$2.80 around 2009, S$3.50 in 2013 and S$3.80 from 2014 to 2017. **Was Oven Marvel expensive?** For a single-serve pie, it sat in the middle. In Miss Tam Chiak's 2019 blind test it cost S$4, while some competitors' pies cost more and heartland bakery pies cost less. One 2018 reviewer felt the portion was small for the price; others felt it was worth every cent. --- # What happened to Oven Marvel? URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/what-happened-to-oven-marvel/ Quick answer: Oven Marvel closed permanently in early 2022. The closure was reported on 17 March 2022 after people found the Sunshine Plaza shop shut. According to netizens who phoned the shop, the owners had retired because of old age. That reason is second-hand: the owners were never quoted. The recipe was not sold or published. ## When did Oven Marvel close? Oven Marvel closed in early 2022. On **17 March 2022**, Great Deals Singapore reported that the Sunshine Plaza shop had shut for good (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). The same day, Leslie Tay updated the header of his 2013 review to say simply that the place was closed (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Map listings switched to "permanently closed" (Wanderlog (aggregator), https://wanderlog.com/place/details/14903951/oven-marvel). What nobody recorded is the last day of trading. Was it the week before? The month before? The last customer review I found from while the shop was open is a muffin review on Burpple, dated May 2021 (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Between May 2021 and March 2022 the record is silent, and that silence covers a period when Singapore was still living with pandemic restrictions. So the honest phrasing, used everywhere on this site, is "closed in early 2022, reported mid-March". ## Why did Oven Marvel close? The reported reason is retirement. According to the Great Deals article, members of the Hawkers United Facebook group phoned the shop and were told that the owners had retired because of old age (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). A HardwareZone forum thread carried the same reason in its title (HardwareZone Forums, https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/oven-marvel-in-sunshine-plaza-known-for-tasty-chicken-pies-closed-for-good-owners-retired-due-to-old-age.6717808/), though I could not read the posts behind its login wall. Three things are worth saying plainly about that reason: 1. **It is second-hand.** No reporter quoted the owners. The chain is: shop, phone call, Facebook group, news site. 2. **It is entirely plausible.** Chef Johnny Ngiam had a full career as a hotel pastry chef before he opened the shop (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), and he made the pastry by hand to the end. That is physically demanding work. 3. **It is nobody else's business beyond that.** I have not tried to contact the family, and this site will not speculate about health, money or anything else. ## How did people find out? The usual Singapore way: someone turned up, found a closed sign, and told the internet. The closure report notes that by the end the shop was taking so many phone orders that walk-in customers could leave with nothing (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). In other words it did not close for lack of customers. Days before the report, the shop was still appearing in a "best pies in Singapore" listicle that had been updated on 14 March 2022 (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/best-pies-in-singapore/), which is a good reminder to check any older food list before you travel for it. Oven Marvel is not the only casualty those lists still carry: [Pie Singapore's list of closed pie shops](https://piesingapore.com/closed-pie-shops-singapore/) keeps track of the others, so you can stop chasing them. > Memory, not a source: I found out from a friend's message, a blurry photo of the sign and no words at all. I went anyway that weekend, which was pointless, and stood in front of the shutter for a minute like you do at a bus stop when you have just missed the bus. ## What happened to the recipe? As far as anyone has published, nothing: it was not sold, licensed or written down in public. No cookbook, no recipe card, no interview with quantities. That is why this site's [recreation kitchen](/recreations/) exists, and why every recipe there is labelled a home recreation and not the original. Some readers have asked whether another bakery took over the recipe or the staff. I found no evidence of that at all. In particular, there is **no connection** between Oven Marvel and Don Pie, a separate pie business with a different founder and a different style of pie. The [evidence page](/what-we-know/) sets out why. ## Is the shop still there? No. The unit no longer trades as Oven Marvel. I have not tracked what occupies it now, and I will not guess. If you walk the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza today you will not smell butter pastry, which is the saddest sentence on this website. [Interactive OpenToday on the web page] ## Where can I get a pie like it now? Nowhere sells the same pie. A handful of places sell good chicken pies with their own character, and some lean towards butter puff pastry. I have written an honest round-up, with the pastry style of each, in [where to get a chicken pie like that today](/where-to-get-a-chicken-pie-like-that-today/). And if what you want is the taste itself, the [flagship recreation](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) is my best attempt so far. ## How can I share my own memory of the shop? If you have a memory, a receipt, an old photo you took yourself, or simply a correction, the [share a memory page](/share-a-memory/) explains how to send it. I would especially like to hear from anyone who knows the year the shop opened. ## FAQ **When did Oven Marvel close?** In early 2022. The closure was reported on 17 March 2022. The exact last day of trading is not recorded in any source we found. **Why did Oven Marvel close?** Reportedly because the owners retired due to old age. That explanation comes from netizens in a Facebook group who phoned the shop, as relayed by Great Deals Singapore. The owners were not quoted directly. **Did Oven Marvel move to a new location?** There is no evidence that it moved or reopened anywhere. Listings show the Sunshine Plaza shop as permanently closed. **Will Oven Marvel reopen?** Nothing suggests it will. If that ever changes, it would be wonderful news, and this site would say so on its front page. --- # Sunshine Plaza and Bencoolen Street: where Oven Marvel was URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza/ Quick answer: Oven Marvel was on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189652, in the Bencoolen and Bugis area. Early listings give unit #01-51 and later ones #01-55, after a reported move a few doors along. Bencoolen MRT station is the nearest. The shop closed in early 2022, so there is nothing to visit now. ## Where exactly was Oven Marvel? Oven Marvel was on the **ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189652** (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/) (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). Reviewers describe it as being on the first level, roughly in the middle of the floor (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Sunshine Plaza sits on Bencoolen Street, in the stretch of town between Bugis and the Singapore Management University area, and the nearest MRT station listed for the shop was **Bencoolen** (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). That is the whole of the verified address. I have deliberately not described the building's history, its owners or its other tenants, because none of my sources cover them and I would rather leave a gap than fill it with guesswork. ## What was the unit number? There are two, and the sources do not agree on when one became the other. - **#01-51** appears in the earliest listings, including the January 2009 post when the shop was still called Delicious Muffins (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). - **#01-55** appears in later listings and in the 2022 closure report (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). A Burpple reviewer wrote in June 2018 that the shop had recently moved to a bigger unit just a few doors away (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). That would neatly explain the change, except that two Burpple reviews from 2014 already give #01-55. Perhaps the 2014 reviewers were using a listing that was updated later; perhaps the shop moved earlier than the 2018 reviewer realised. I cannot tell, so this site says "ground floor of Sunshine Plaza" and leaves the unit number as a footnote. A Japanese eatery, Ichi Tei, was listed nearby at #01-52 (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews), which suggests how close together these units were. ## What were the opening hours? They changed over time, and of course none of them apply any more. Opening hours as reported (historical only) | Period | Hours reported | Rest days | About 2009 to 2015 | Roughly 11.30am to 8pm; one 2015 review says it closed at 6pm | The 8th, 18th and 28th of each month | April 2020 | Mon to Fri from 12.45pm; Sat from 12.30pm; Sun from 12pm; all until 8pm | Not mentioned | Since early 2022 | Closed | Every day Opening hours on paper were never the whole story. The pies were baked in small batches and often ran out well before closing (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html), so the practical hours were "until the trays are empty". ## What did the shop look like? Small and plain. Reviewers describe a mostly takeaway counter with perhaps one or two tables, and no decoration worth mentioning (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). In 2017 one reviewer could see straight into the little kitchen, where the chef was laminating pastry (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). I have found no description of the signage, a logo or a slogan, and I have not made one up. The photographs on this site are illustrations: none of them shows the real Sunshine Plaza or the real shop. > Memory, not a source: What I remember is the corridor more than the shop: tiled floor, strip lights, a quiet weekday afternoon, and then the butter. You walked into the smell before you saw the counter. Several reviewers say the same, which is a relief, because for a while I thought I had invented it. ## How did people get there? On foot, mostly. The shop was a takeaway that suited the office workers, students and shoppers of the Bencoolen, Bugis and Dhoby Ghaut area. Before the Downtown Line arrived, people walked over from nearby stations; later listings simply name Bencoolen as the nearest MRT (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). Many customers phoned ahead, especially near the end (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). ## Is there anything to see at Sunshine Plaza now? Not from Oven Marvel. The shop closed in early 2022 and has not reopened anywhere (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). If you go to Bencoolen Street for a pie, you will be disappointed; if you go for a walk and a memory, you will at least get the walk. For a chicken pie you can actually buy this week, see [where to get a chicken pie like that today](/where-to-get-a-chicken-pie-like-that-today/). For the full history, start with [the Oven Marvel story](/the-oven-marvel-story/), then read [what happened to Oven Marvel](/what-happened-to-oven-marvel/) for the closure and [the price of an Oven Marvel chicken pie](/oven-marvel-prices-2009-2022/) for what a visit used to cost. ## FAQ **What was Oven Marvel's address?** 91 Bencoolen Street, Sunshine Plaza, Singapore 189652, on the ground floor. Later listings give the unit as #01-55; earlier ones say #01-51. **Which MRT station was nearest to Oven Marvel?** Bencoolen station, according to the shop's later listings. The shop has been closed since early 2022. **What were Oven Marvel's opening hours?** They changed over the years. Around 2009 to 2015 reviewers list roughly 11.30am to 8pm, with the shop closed on the 8th, 18th and 28th of each month. In 2020 SETHLUI.com listed opening from about 12pm to 12.45pm depending on the day, until 8pm. None of this applies now: the shop closed in 2022. --- # Why puff pastry and not shortcrust? URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/why-puff-pastry-not-shortcrust/ Quick answer: Shortcrust is a crumbly, sturdy pastry of flour rubbed with fat, used for most British-style pies because it holds a deep, wet filling. Puff pastry is laminated: hundreds of thin butter and dough layers that steam apart into flakes. Oven Marvel used house-made all-butter puff for a flat pie, trading height and sturdiness for crackle and butter flavour. ## What is shortcrust pastry? Shortcrust pastry is flour with fat rubbed into it, bound with a little cold water. The fat coats the flour and "shortens" the gluten, which is where the name comes from, so the baked crust is tender and crumbly rather than chewy. It is sturdy, it does not mind a wet filling, and it holds its shape in a deep tin. That is why it is the default for most British-style meat pies, and for a great many Singapore bakery pies too. If you want to see where the Singapore bakery pie sits among British steak pies, Australian meat pies and American pot pies, there is [a wider guide to pie types](https://piesingapore.com/pie-types-explained/) on Pie Singapore; this page sticks to the one difference that defined Oven Marvel. ## What is puff pastry? Puff pastry is a laminated dough. A block of cold butter is wrapped in a simple flour-and-water dough, then rolled and folded again and again until there are hundreds of alternating sheets of dough and butter. In a hot oven the water in the butter turns to steam and pushes the dough sheets apart, and the butter fries them crisp. The result rises, flakes and shatters. The counter below shows the arithmetic, which is the clearest way to see why puff pastry behaves so differently from shortcrust. [Interactive LaminationCounter on the web page] ## What did Oven Marvel use? Oven Marvel used puff pastry, made in the shop, with butter (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Every detailed review agrees. The pie had a sheet of it on the bottom and another on top, and was baked flat. Reviewers who tried to describe it reached for contrasts: light rather than heavy, crisp on top and chewy inside (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), not overly flaky but buttery (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). Several pointedly compare it with the shortcrust, British-style pie they expected. The butter is the second half of the story. Leslie Tay noticed that the pastry smelled of butter rather than margarine (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Many bakeries use margarine or a pastry shortening for puff, for very practical reasons: they stay pliable in a warm room and they melt at a higher temperature, so the layers survive a hot kitchen. All-butter puff is more fragile and much more delicious. ## How do the two pastries compare? Four pastries a Singapore pie might wear | | Shortcrust | Rough puff | Full puff, all butter | Puff with margarine | How it is made | Fat rubbed into flour | Cold butter pieces folded through dough | One butter slab, many folds | Same, with pastry margarine | Texture | Tender, crumbly, sturdy | Flaky, slightly uneven | Flaky, shattering, tall layers | Flaky, crisp, less rich | Flavour | Depends on fat | Butter | Butter | Milder, sometimes waxy | In 30 C heat | Forgiving | Needs chilling | Needs a lot of chilling | Most forgiving of the puffs | Holds a wet filling | Very well | Fairly well | Base can go soft | Fairly well | Best shape | Deep, tall pies | Flat pies, turnovers | Flat pies, lids, vol-au-vents | Anything, at scale ## Why would a pie shop choose puff? Nobody recorded Chef Johnny Ngiam's reasoning, so what follows is my inference, labelled as such. **Because he was a pastry chef.** His career was in hotel pastry (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), where laminated doughs are daily work. Making puff pastry by hand is a skill most bakeries buy their way around. A chef who has it tends to use it. **Because a flat pie is mostly pastry.** A tall pie is a container for filling. A flat pie is closer to a filled pastry, where the crust is the point and the filling is the seasoning. The proportions of Oven Marvel's pie, often criticised as too flat (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/), make most sense if the pastry was what the shop was proudest of. **Because puff carries a peppery cream sauce well.** The soaked inner layers that reviewers mention, the chewy bit just above the filling (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/), only happen with laminated pastry. Shortcrust would simply go soft. ## Were other Singapore pies made with puff pastry? Some, yes, which is why "old school" is a slippery label. Leslie Tay remembered the neighbourhood bakery chicken pies of the 1970s and 1980s as shaped like big muffins with a domed top and made with puff pastry (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). That is one person's memory, not a survey. Hotel coffee houses have long made butter puff chicken pies: a Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel told Hong Leong's Hi-Life magazine that he chills his shaped pies at 1 to 3 C for about two hours before baking, because butter melts in Singapore heat (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html). And chain bakeries describe their own crusts in their own words; Polar, for instance, calls its chicken pie crust buttery, golden and tender-flaky (Polar Puffs & Cakes, https://polarpuffs-cakes.com/page/article/98-years-of-handcrafted-pastries-pies-a-look-at-signatures/). What made Oven Marvel unusual was not puff pastry alone. It was all-butter puff, made by hand, in a tiny takeaway shop, in a flat pie, at a price that ended at S$4. > Memory, not a source: The first time I tried to explain Oven Marvel to a friend from London I said "it is a chicken pie but the pastry is a croissant". That is wrong in several technical ways and right in the only way that mattered to her. ## Can I use shop-bought puff pastry instead? Yes, if you choose carefully. Look for all-butter puff, because the flavour difference is exactly the one Leslie Tay noticed. I have written a whole [weeknight recipe built on bought puff](/recreations/weeknight-chicken-pie-bought-puff/), and it gets surprisingly close. For the full experience, make [rough puff pastry](/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/) and read [laminating puff pastry in Singapore heat](/technique/laminating-in-singapore-heat/) first; the other [technique guides for butter puff chicken pies](/technique/) cover the filling and the reheat. The equal-weight rough puff method I use borrows its shape from a Singapore home baker's Eurasian chicken pie recipe (Singapore Noodles (Substack), https://sgpnoodles.substack.com/p/eurasian-chicken-pie), adjusted for a flat pie. ## FAQ **What is the difference between puff pastry and shortcrust?** Shortcrust is made by rubbing fat into flour so it coats the flour and stops long gluten strands forming, giving a tender, crumbly, sturdy crust. Puff pastry is made by folding a block of fat into dough again and again, creating many thin layers that separate as the water in the butter turns to steam. **Is rough puff the same as puff pastry?** Rough puff is a quicker cousin. Instead of enclosing one flat slab of butter, you mix cold butter pieces into the dough and fold it several times. It rises less evenly than full puff pastry but gives very similar flaky layers, which is why it suits a home recreation. **Why do some puff pastries taste of butter and others do not?** Because many commercial puff pastries are made with margarine or pastry shortening, which tolerate warm kitchens better. Leslie Tay specifically noticed that Oven Marvel's pastry smelled of butter rather than margarine. --- # Laminating puff pastry in Singapore heat URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/technique/laminating-in-singapore-heat/ Quick answer: To laminate puff pastry in Singapore, work when the kitchen is coolest, keep butter and dough at the same cold-but-bendable firmness, rest the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes after every one or two folds, roll fast with minimal flour, and chill or freeze the shaped pies before baking so the butter layers are firm when they meet a hot oven. ## Why is laminating hard in Singapore? Laminated pastry only works while the butter stays in sheets. If the term is new, chickenpie.net's glossary has a clear, general definition of [lamination in pastry](https://chickenpie.net/glossary/lamination); this guide is about what changes when the kitchen is 30 C. Butter softens quickly as it warms, and an ordinary Singapore kitchen without aircon sits around 30 C for much of the day. At that temperature, a sheet of butter inside a sheet of dough has only minutes before it stops behaving like a solid. Once soft, it smears into the dough instead of separating from it, and the pastry bakes up bready rather than flaky. Professional kitchens solve this with cold rooms and chillers. A Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel described shaping his butter puff pies and then resting them at 1 to 3 C for about two hours before baking, precisely because butter melts in the local heat (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html). Chef Johnny Ngiam made all-butter puff by hand in a small shop kitchen for years (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), which, having tried it at home, I now regard as a quiet feat. ## When is the best time to laminate? Early. The coolest part of the day in most HDB flats is before the sun hits the walls. I start the dough the night before, so it is cold right through, and do the folds between 7am and 9am. If you have aircon, run it in the kitchen for half an hour before you start, and close the door. ## What equipment helps? - **A cold surface.** Marble, granite or a steel tray straight from the fridge. Wooden boards hold heat. - **A long, straight rolling pin** without handles, so your warm hands stay away from the dough. - **A ruler.** Rough puff wants a rectangle about three times as long as it is wide. Measuring stops you rolling it too thin in one corner. - **A pastry brush** to sweep off excess flour before each fold. Flour trapped between layers makes the pastry tough. - **Space in the fridge** for a flat tray, and ideally a corner of the freezer. ## What is the routine, step by step? 1. **Chill everything.** Flour, butter cut into cubes, and the water with a few ice cubes in it. Even the mixing bowl can go in the freezer for ten minutes. 2. **Mix fast.** Rub or cut the butter into the flour only until it is in flattened lumps the size of your thumbnail, then add just enough iced water to bring it together. Visible streaks of butter are what you want. 3. **Rest 30 minutes.** Wrap and chill. This lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax, and firms the butter again. 4. **Roll and fold.** Roll into a long rectangle, brush off flour, fold in thirds like a letter. Turn it a quarter. That is one turn. 5. **Rest again.** In Singapore I rest after every single turn for the first two, then after every pair. The Singapore Noodles rough puff I adapted chills for 30 minutes between folds (Singapore Noodles (Substack), https://sgpnoodles.substack.com/p/eurasian-chicken-pie), which matches my experience. 6. **Stop at four turns** for rough puff. More is not always better; see the counter below. 7. **Shape, then chill again.** Cut and fill the pies, then chill them for at least 30 minutes in the fridge, or 15 minutes in the freezer, before they go into the oven. ## How many folds do I need? The counter shows what each fold does. For a flat chicken pie, four letter folds of rough puff give plenty of layers. Full puff pastry for a tall vol-au-vent might get six. [Interactive LaminationCounter on the web page] ## What is the chill-before-baking trick? This is the most useful single habit for puff pastry in the tropics. Pastry warms up while you shape it: rolling, cutting, filling, crimping, glazing. By the time a tray of pies is ready, the butter layers at the edges are often soft. If they go into the oven like that, the butter runs out before the steam can lift the layers, and you get a puddle and a flat, greasy edge. Chilling the shaped pies fixes it. The M Hotel chef's two hours at 1 to 3 C (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html) is the professional version. At home, 30 minutes in the fridge or 15 minutes in the freezer is usually enough for small flat pies. The pastry should feel firm, almost stiff, when you take it out. Then it goes straight onto a preheated tray in a fully hot oven. ## What goes wrong, and how do I fix it? Troubleshooting in a warm kitchen | What you see | Likely cause | What to do | Butter breaks through the dough while rolling | Butter too cold and brittle, or dough too thin there | Patch with a pinch of flour, chill 15 minutes, roll more gently | Dough turns greasy and sticky | Butter has softened | Stop. Wrap and chill 30 minutes. Do not add flour to rescue it | Dough springs back when rolled | Gluten is tight | Rest longer between turns | Butter pools on the tray in the oven | Pastry was warm when baked, or oven not hot | Chill the shaped pies; preheat fully; bake on a hot tray | Layers fused, pastry bready | Butter smeared into dough during folding | Work faster and colder; fewer folds per session | Pale, soft bottom | Wet filling, warm filling, or no heat from below | Cool the filling fully; bake on a preheated tray on the lowest shelf > Memory, not a source: My first rough puff in a June afternoon kitchen turned into something closer to a scone. Attempt three, started at 7am with the aircon on and the flour in the freezer overnight, was the first one that shattered. The difference was not skill. It was temperature. The whole story is in the [recreation log](/recreation-log/). ## Is it worth making puff pastry at all? For the Oven Marvel pie, I think so. The thing reviewers kept noticing was the butter (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), and you can only control that if you make the pastry. But a good all-butter bought puff gets you much of the way there on a weeknight; see the [weeknight recreation](/recreations/weeknight-chicken-pie-bought-puff/). When you are ready to go the whole way, the [rough puff pastry recipe](/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/) has timers built into the steps, and the [butter puff chicken pie recreation](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) shows where the pastry ends up. The other [technique guides](/technique/) pick up from there: the filling, the pepper and the reheat. ## FAQ **Can you make puff pastry in a hot kitchen?** Yes, with more chilling. Rest the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes after every fold or two, roll quickly, and chill the shaped pastry before baking. Aircon helps a great deal but is not essential. **How cold should butter be for laminating?** Cold enough to stay solid, soft enough to bend without cracking. Press it with a finger: it should dent slowly without going greasy. Butter straight from a very cold fridge often cracks and needs a few minutes of bashing with a rolling pin. **Why does my puff pastry leak butter in the oven?** Usually because the butter layers were soft when the pastry went in, so the butter melted and ran out before the dough could set. Chill the shaped pies thoroughly, bake on a preheated tray, and make sure the oven is fully hot. --- # How thick should the bechamel be for a pie filling? URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/technique/bechamel-thickness-for-pie-filling/ Quick answer: For a flat puff pastry chicken pie, make a medium-thick bechamel of about 35 g butter and 35 g flour per 300 ml of liquid. It should coat a spoon thickly and hold a clear line when you draw a finger through it. It thickens further as it cools, and it must be completely cold before it meets the pastry. ## What thickness was the Oven Marvel sauce? Reviewers used three helpful phrases. Leslie Tay described a homemade bechamel binding the chicken and vegetables (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). SETHLUI.com called it medium-thick (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). And springtomorrow noticed that when the pie was cut, the filling flowed slowly (springtomorrow, https://www.springtomorrow.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza-the-best-chicken-pies-in-singapore/). Put together, that is a sauce thicker than a soup and looser than a croquette mix: it holds together on a fork but does not stand up on its own. Miss Tam Chiak's tasters found it soaked into the inner layers of pastry (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/), which also tells you it was not stiff. ## What is a bechamel, exactly? Bechamel is a white sauce made from three things: butter, flour and milk. You melt the butter, stir in the flour to make a roux (an international pie reference sums up [what a roux is and why it thickens](https://chickenpie.net/glossary/roux)), cook it for a minute or two without letting it brown, and whisk in hot milk gradually. As it simmers, the starch in the flour swells and thickens the milk. Seasoning is classically salt and white pepper, sometimes nutmeg. For a chicken pie, I replace part of the milk with the stock from poaching the chicken. Strictly, a roux thickened with stock is a velouté and one with milk is a bechamel; a mixture is somewhere between. Reviewers called Oven Marvel's sauce bechamel, so I do too. ## What ratio should I use? These are the three consistencies I use, per 300 ml of liquid. They are standard kitchen proportions, rounded to friendly numbers. Bechamel by thickness, per 300 ml liquid | Thickness | Butter | Plain flour | Use | Thin, pouring | 18 g | 18 g | Soups, a sauce to pour over vegetables | Medium | 28 g | 28 g | Gratins, lasagne | Medium-thick, pie | 35 g | 35 g | Flat puff pastry pies | Very thick, binding | 45 g | 45 g | Croquettes, a filling that must hold a shape The pie row is where I have settled after several [recreation attempts](/recreation-log/). With chicken, potato and peas folded through, it gives a filling that holds together when the pie is cut warm and oozes a little, slowly, which is what reviewers describe. ## How do I test the thickness? Use three checks, because each can fool you on its own. 1. **The spoon test.** Dip a wooden spoon and lift it. The sauce should coat it thickly, like custard that has gone a little too far. Draw a finger across the back of the spoon: the line should stay clean. 2. **The cold plate test.** Keep a saucer in the freezer. Drop a spoonful of sauce on it and wait one minute. The sauce thickens as it cools, and the cold spoonful shows you roughly what the filling will be like inside a pie that has rested for ten minutes. 3. **The simmer test.** After the sauce thickens, keep it at a gentle bubble for at least two more minutes, stirring. Flour needs time at a simmer to thicken fully and lose its raw taste. A sauce that looks right after thirty seconds will often thin out later. ## Why does thickness matter more under puff pastry? Because puff pastry has no defence against water. Shortcrust is dense and fatty enough to tolerate a wetter filling for a while. Puff pastry relies on separate layers of dough and butter; if a runny filling soaks the bottom sheet before it sets, those layers never lift. A slightly thicker sauce, fully cooled, protects the base while the oven does its work. The top layer, meanwhile, stays well away from the filling and puffs freely. This is also why the soaked inner layer reviewers loved is a little bit of a balancing act: you want the sauce to soften the innermost layer of pastry, not drown the whole base. ## How do I cool the filling safely? Food safety and good pastry agree here. Cooked food should not linger in the temperature danger zone, roughly 5 C to 60 C, where bacteria multiply quickly (Singapore Food Agency, https://www.sfa.gov.sg/tools-and-resources/glossary-a-z-on-food-safety). In a Singapore kitchen, food left on the counter stays in that zone for a long time. So: - Spread the hot filling in a **shallow tray** so it cools fast. - Press **baking paper onto the surface** to stop a skin forming. - Once it stops steaming, usually within 20 to 30 minutes, **refrigerate it**. Do not leave it out for more than two hours in total. - Use refrigerated filling within **two to three days**. General leftover guidance allows three to four days (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety); I prefer a margin for something that will then be baked and possibly kept again. Cold filling is also easier to portion. It holds a neat mound in the centre of each pastry circle instead of spreading to the edges where you need a clean seal. > Memory, not a source: Attempt two was a bechamel made to a pasta-bake recipe. It tasted right and behaved like a flood: the pies leaked, the bases were pale, and the only honest name for dinner was chicken soup with a hat. I have measured since. ## What else affects the texture? - **Potato starch.** Diced potato releases a little starch as it simmers, which thickens the filling further. If you add potato, aim for the lighter end of the ratio. - **Frozen peas.** Add them straight from frozen at the end. They cool the mixture down and keep their colour. - **Chicken juices.** Thigh meat releases liquid as it rests. Drain it into the sauce rather than letting it pool later. - **Salt timing.** Season at the end, because the stock and the reduction concentrate salt. The complete method, with weights that scale for any number of pies, is in the [peppery chicken bechamel filling](/recreations/peppery-chicken-bechamel-filling/) recipe. How much pepper goes into it, and when, is the subject of [white pepper in chicken pie](/technique/white-pepper/), and what a properly thick sauce does to the pastry is easiest to see in the [butter puff chicken pie recipe](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/). All four [puff pastry pie technique guides](/technique/) are collected on one page. ## FAQ **What is bechamel?** Bechamel is a white sauce made by cooking butter and flour together into a roux, then whisking in hot milk until it thickens. It is one of the classic French mother sauces and the base of many creamy pie fillings. **Why is my pie filling runny?** Usually the roux had too little flour for the amount of liquid, the sauce was not simmered long enough for the flour to thicken fully, or watery vegetables released liquid. Simmer the sauce for at least two minutes after it thickens, and cook vegetables before adding them. **Can I put warm filling into puff pastry?** No. Warm filling softens the butter layers before the pie reaches the oven, which makes the base soggy and the layers fuse. Cool the filling quickly in a shallow tray, refrigerate it, and assemble cold. --- # White pepper: the warmth in an old-school chicken pie URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/technique/white-pepper/ Quick answer: Old-school Singapore chicken pies taste peppery because the creamy filling is seasoned generously with white pepper, which gives a warm, earthy heat that builds at the back of the throat. White pepper suits a pale bechamel because it is hotter and muskier than black pepper and leaves no dark specks. Add some early for depth and some at the end for aroma. ## How peppery was the Oven Marvel pie? Peppery is the single most repeated word in the reviews. Leslie Tay called the filling peppery and creamy (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), and so did Miss Tam Chiak's tasters (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/) and SETHLUI.com (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). The most precise description comes from a 2017 Burpple reviewer who called it **white peppery**, and also a little sweet (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). That pairing, warm pepper against sweet peas and gently cooked onion, is the flavour I keep coming back to. Pepper is not peculiar to Oven Marvel: old-school Singapore chicken pies in general lean on it, and [originaldon.com's note on pepper and seasoning](https://originaldon.com/craft-notes/pepper-and-seasoning/) shows how one maker of the egg-and-potato kind of pie thinks about it. ## What is white pepper? White pepper is the seed of the same berry that gives us black pepper, with the outer skin removed. Black pepper is picked slightly unripe and dried whole, skin and all, which is where its dark colour and bright, resinous aroma come from. For white pepper, riper berries are usually soaked until the skin softens, then rubbed clean and dried. What remains is a pale seed with a different personality: less bright, more earthy and musky, and with a heat that seems to arrive later and sit at the back of the throat. ## Why does white pepper suit a creamy chicken filling? Three reasons, in order of importance. 1. **The heat carries.** Rich sauces dull flavours. A creamy, buttery filling inside buttery pastry needs something with enough edge to cut through, and white pepper's late, lingering warmth does that without adding acidity. 2. **The aroma fits.** White pepper's muskiness sits comfortably alongside chicken, onion and milk. Black pepper's brighter, almost citrusy notes can feel slightly out of place in a mild white sauce. 3. **It disappears visually.** A pale bechamel stays pale. It is a small thing, but an old-school pie filling looks right when it is cream-coloured with green peas and orange carrot, not speckled. White pepper is also a familiar seasoning across Singapore cooking, from the peppery pork rib soup of Teochew-style bak kut teh to everyday stir-fries and marinades. Leslie Tay pinned the pie's distinctly Singaporean character on what he called a Hainanese touch (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). He did not specify what that was, so I will not pretend to know. But a confident hand with white pepper is the obvious candidate. ## How much should I use? Less than you think, then a bit more. Ground white pepper is strong, and its heat builds as the filling sits. My working amount for an Oven Marvel style filling: White pepper per 1 kg of finished filling (my own scale) | Level | Amount | What it tastes like | Gentle | 1 g (half a level teaspoon) | Warm, family-friendly, pepper in the background | Old-school | 2 g (one level teaspoon) | Clearly peppery, warmth that lingers; my recreation | Bold | 3 g (one and a half teaspoons) | Pepper is the headline; good with a cold drink These are my numbers from testing, not a measurement of anything the shop did. Weigh it if you can. Teaspoons of fine powder vary a lot. ## When should I add it? Split it. White pepper changes character the longer it cooks. - **Early, into the roux or the simmering sauce:** about half. Long cooking mellows the aroma and spreads the heat through the sauce, giving depth. - **At the end, after the sauce comes off the heat:** the other half. This keeps the sharper, more aromatic top notes that you smell when you break the pie open. - **Taste when cold.** Pepper reads stronger in a cold filling than a hot one, and the filling goes into the pie cold. Adjust after chilling, not while it is steaming. ## Should I grind it fresh? If you can, yes. Pre-ground white pepper loses aroma quickly, and old jars can develop a musty smell that some people dislike in white pepper generally. Whole white peppercorns keep for a long time; grind them finely in a spice grinder or a mortar, because a coarse grind leaves gritty, fiery pieces in a smooth sauce. If you only have ground pepper, buy small jars and smell before you use it. ## What if my pie tastes too peppery? Do not add sugar. Add more of the dull things: a little extra milk-based sauce, more potato, or more peas. All three dilute the heat without making the filling taste "fixed". If the pies are already baked, a cold drink helps. Leslie Tay liked his Oven Marvel pie with teh tarik (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), and I now understand the logic. > Memory, not a source: I under-peppered my first four attempts, out of politeness I think. The pies were nice. They were also obviously not the pie I remembered. The day I doubled the white pepper was the day my kitchen first smelled right. ## Where does this fit in the recipe? The [peppery chicken bechamel filling](/recreations/peppery-chicken-bechamel-filling/) uses the old-school level, split in two, with a note on scaling. For how the sauce itself should behave, see [bechamel thickness for pie filling](/technique/bechamel-thickness-for-pie-filling/). And for why the pepper alone is not enough, read [what the Oven Marvel chicken pie tasted like](/oven-marvel-chicken-pie/): the butter is doing just as much work. This guide is one of four [chicken pie technique guides](/technique/) on this site. ## FAQ **What is the difference between white and black pepper?** Both come from the same plant. Black pepper is the whole dried berry, skin and all. White pepper is the seed with the outer skin removed, usually after soaking. Without the skin, white pepper loses some of the bright, piney aroma of black pepper and gains a muskier, earthier character and a sharper heat. **How much white pepper should go in a chicken pie filling?** For a peppery, old-school filling, I use about 2 g, roughly a level teaspoon, of finely ground white pepper per 1 kg of finished filling, half added during cooking and half at the end. Start with less if you are unsure; you can always add more. **Can I use black pepper instead?** You can, and it will be good, but it will taste different: brighter, less warming, and with visible dark specks in the pale sauce. For an Oven Marvel style pie, white pepper is the better match to what reviewers described. --- # Reheating puff pastry pies without sogginess URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/technique/reheating-puff-pastry-pies/ Quick answer: To reheat a chilled puff pastry pie, let it stand 10 to 15 minutes, then bake it on a wire rack at 180 C for 15 to 20 minutes (toaster oven or air fryer at 160 C for 8 to 12 minutes), covering loosely with foil if the top browns early. Heat until the centre reaches 75 C. Avoid the microwave alone: it steams the pastry soft. ## What did Oven Marvel advise? The shop had a simple rule. In 2016 the staff told umakemehungry to refrigerate leftover pies and, when reheating, let them stand for 10 to 15 minutes first (umakemehungry, https://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/05/over-marvel.html). A 2017 Burpple reviewer reported that the pies reheated well in a toaster oven (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). Both tips survive testing. Standing time takes the fridge chill off the filling, so the centre heats through before the pastry over-browns. A toaster oven delivers dry, direct heat, which is exactly what puff pastry needs. ## Why does puff pastry go soggy? Puff pastry is crisp because its layers are dry. In the fridge, moisture from the filling slowly migrates into the bottom and inner layers, and the butter in the pastry firms up. Any reheating method that adds steam, the microwave especially, softens the layers further. Any method that heats only the top leaves the base damp. The fix is dry heat from below and around, at a moderate temperature, for long enough to heat the centre safely. ## What is the best way to reheat a chilled pie? **The oven method**, for one pie or a tray: 1. Take the pie out of the fridge and let it stand for **10 to 15 minutes**, as the shop advised. 2. Heat the oven to **180 C** (fan 160 C). Put a wire rack on a tray, so air reaches the base. 3. Bake for **15 to 20 minutes** for a small flat single pie. If the top darkens before the time is up, lay a loose sheet of foil over it. 4. Check the centre with a probe thermometer: it should read **75 C or above**. If not, give it 5 more minutes. 5. Rest for 2 minutes. The filling stays very hot. **The toaster oven method**: the same, at a medium setting, with the pie on the wire rack, turning once. Toaster ovens vary a lot, so the probe matters more here. **The air fryer method**: **160 C for 8 to 12 minutes**, on a rack if you have one, foil loosely over the top for the first half if your machine browns aggressively. Air fryers are fast at re-crisping and inconsistent at heating centres, so check the temperature. These timings are for flat puff pastry pies like the Oven Marvel kind. For thicker shortcrust or old-school egg pies, a sister site has a fuller guide on [how to reheat chicken pie in the oven, air fryer or microwave](https://donchickenpie.com/how-to-reheat-chicken-pie/), with a calculator for chilled and frozen pies. ## How long can I keep a baked pie? Storage for a baked chicken pie | Where | How long | Notes | Room temperature | Under 2 hours in total | Less in a hot kitchen. Cooked food between about 5 C and 60 C is in the danger zone (Singapore Food Agency, https://www.sfa.gov.sg/tools-and-resources/glossary-a-z-on-food-safety) | Fridge, covered | Up to 3 days | General guidance allows 3 to 4 days for leftovers (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety); pastry is best within 2 | Freezer, wrapped | Up to 3 months | Quality fades after that, though it remains safe if kept frozen In Singapore, "room temperature" is warm. If pies are cooling on a counter, get them into the fridge as soon as they stop steaming. ## How do I reheat from frozen? Do not thaw on the counter. Either thaw overnight in the fridge and follow the chilled method, or bake from frozen: **170 C, loosely covered with foil, 25 to 35 minutes** for a small single pie, then uncover for the last 5 minutes. Trade-body guidance for savoury pies follows the same pattern of moderate heat, foil first, uncovered at the end (British Pie Week, https://www.british-pie-week.co.uk/blog/savoury-pies/how-to-store-freeze-and-reheat-savoury-pies-properly/). Always finish with the thermometer check at 75 C. ## Can I use the microwave at all? As a helper, yes. The microwave heats the filling quickly but turns pastry soft and chewy, because it works by heating water. If you are short of time: 1. Microwave on **medium for 45 to 60 seconds** to take the chill off the centre. 2. Move the pie straight to a **hot oven, toaster oven or air fryer for 5 to 8 minutes** to drive off moisture and re-crisp the layers. 3. Check the centre is at **75 C**. Microwave alone, and you will have a warm pie with a sad hat. ## How do I stop the base going soggy before it is even reheated? Most of the work happens before the pie goes into the fridge. - **Cool the pie on a rack**, not on a plate, so steam escapes from underneath. - **Do not wrap a warm pie.** Wait until it is fully cool, then cover it loosely or put it in a container with the lid ajar for the first hour. - **Do not store it in the paper bag.** The bag is perfect for walking back to the office and terrible in the fridge, where it holds moisture against the pastry. - **Bake it properly the first time.** A well-baked base, deep gold underneath, survives reheating far better than a pale one. See [laminating in Singapore heat](/technique/laminating-in-singapore-heat/) on baking on a preheated tray. If a pie still comes out limp, burnt on top or cold in the middle, [this troubleshooting table for soggy reheated pies](https://donchickenpie.com/blog/soggy-reheated-chicken-pie-fixes/) matches each symptom to its cause. Most of the fixes come back to the same two rules: dry heat, and a probe thermometer. > Memory, not a source: On the days I bought two pies, the second one rode home in my bag and went into the fridge for the next morning. Fifteen minutes on the counter, toaster oven on medium, a careful eye on the edges. It was never quite the first pie, but it was close enough to make a Wednesday better. ## Does this work for curry puffs? Yes. Curry puffs reheat even better, because their filling is drier. Use the same oven or air fryer settings with slightly shorter times, and the same 75 C check. The [curry puff recreation](/recreations/curry-puff/) includes freezing notes for unbaked puffs, which bake from frozen beautifully, and the [butter puff chicken pie recipe](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) has the same notes for whole pies. For the rest of the method, from pastry to filling, see the [technique guides for butter puff chicken pies](/technique/). ## FAQ **How long does a chicken pie keep in the fridge?** Refrigerate a cooked chicken pie within two hours of baking, and sooner in a hot kitchen. Eat it within three days. General food safety guidance allows three to four days for cooked leftovers, but pastry quality drops after the second day. **Can I reheat a puff pastry pie in the microwave?** You can heat the filling in the microwave, but the pastry will go soft and chewy. If you must, microwave on medium for 45 to 60 seconds to warm the centre, then finish in a hot oven or air fryer for a few minutes to re-crisp. **Can I freeze baked puff pastry pies?** Yes. Cool completely, wrap well and freeze for up to three months. Reheat from frozen at 170 C, covered loosely with foil, for about 25 to 35 minutes for a small single pie, then uncover for the last 5 minutes. Check the centre is at least 75 C. **What temperature should the centre of a reheated chicken pie reach?** At least 75 C in the centre, which is piping hot throughout. A cheap probe thermometer pushed in through the side takes the guesswork away. --- # Where to get a chicken pie like that today URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/where-to-get-a-chicken-pie-like-that-today/ Quick answer: No shop sells the Oven Marvel pie now. For butter puff pastry and a creamy filling, the closest is a hotel coffee-house pie such as M Hotel's. For an old-school Hainanese-style pie with egg, try DonChef's Original Chicken Pie at Chicken Pie Kitchen, made to the recipe Don Pie founder Chef Don Lim created in 1983. For a cheap heartland pie, Polar, Kopi & Tarts and Balmoral Bakery. Prices as of October 2026; check before you go. ## What am I actually looking for? If you miss Oven Marvel, it helps to name what you miss, because no single pie has all of it. The Oven Marvel chicken pie was: - **flat**, with pastry top and bottom; - **all-butter puff pastry**, house-made, crisp outside and soft where it met the sauce; - filled with **chicken thigh, peas, carrot, onion and potato in a peppery bechamel**; - **egg-free**; - about **S$4** in its final years. The pies below each match some of that. I have described the pastry the way each seller or a published review describes it, and kept my opinions in the yellow "compared with Oven Marvel" line. All prices and details are **as of October 2026, check before you go**, because pie shops change things. ## Which pie is closest in pastry? ### M Hotel Singapore: Café 2000 and Tea Bar chicken pie - Pastry: Butter puff pastry, handmade; shaped pies are chilled before baking - Filling: Creamy chicken chunks, carrot and button mushroom - Price: A promotional S$5.90++ was advertised in August 2024; we could not confirm the current regular price - Where: M Hotel, Anson Road (Tanjong Pagar) - Halal: Not halal-certified (hotel kitchen) - Compared with Oven Marvel: The nearest in pastry philosophy: butter puff, made by hand, with a creamy filling. Different shape and seasoning, and it has mushrooms, which Oven Marvel did not. A Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel described his method to Hong Leong's Hi-Life magazine in 2018: butter puff pastry, a filling of creamy chicken chunks, carrots and button mushrooms, and shaped pies rested at 1 to 3 C for about two hours before baking, because butter melts in Singapore heat (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html). That is the same problem any all-butter puff baker in Singapore has to solve, including, presumably, the chef at Sunshine Plaza. Check the hotel's page or call before making a trip. ## Which pie is the old-school Hainanese-style option? ### Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab: DonChef's Original Chicken Pie - Pastry: A golden, flaky crust - Filling: Chunky chicken, potato, vegetables and a spice blend, with half a hard-boiled egg - Price: Personal S$6.80; whole pie (feeds 4 to 6) S$33.80, per the February 2026 menu. As of October 2026, check the official site - Where: Flagship at 39 Tyrwhitt Road, Jalan Besar; takeaway kiosks at AMK Hub, Wisma Atria, White Sands and Tiong Bahru Plaza - Halal: No pork, no lard, not Halal-certified - Compared with Oven Marvel: A different pie, not a substitute: built around egg and a spiced filling rather than a peppery bechamel. If what you miss is an old-school Singapore chicken pie in general, this is the classic Hainanese style. Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab was co-founded by **Chef Don Lim, the founder of Don Pie**, and it bakes the Don pies today under the DonChef name. Chef Don Lim has been making Hainanese-style chicken pies since the 1980s, first for a company staff canteen, then from his own shop at Far East Square from around 2000 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/chicken-pie-kitchen-dons-signature-crab-bee-hoon-the-don-is-back/). The brand calls the Original Chicken Pie "Singapore's original Chicken Pie, since 1983", which is its own tagline for the recipe. For the longer story of the style, originaldon.com, a site published by the kitchen itself, has a piece on the [Hainanese chicken pie](https://originaldon.com/story/the-hainanese-thread/) and where his version comes from. The defining detail is **half a hard-boiled egg** in each pie (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/chicken-pie-kitchen-dons-signature-crab-bee-hoon-the-don-is-back/), the thing Oven Marvel never did. Ordering works through the official site, with advance online orders, collection from the outlet you choose, and delivery by third-party drivers with a fee based on distance. The home page advertises free islandwide delivery above S$200; check the ordering site for the live terms. To be completely clear, because this site is careful about it: **Chicken Pie Kitchen and Don Pie have no connection with Oven Marvel**. They are separate businesses with different founders, as the [evidence page](/what-we-know/) sets out. ## Which pies are cheap, cheerful and everywhere? These are the everyday options. If you are buying for an office or a party rather than chasing a memory, a fuller guide on [where to buy pies in Singapore](https://donpieshop.com/where-to-buy-pies-singapore/) covers kiosks, bakeries, supermarkets and delivery in more practical detail than I can here. ### Polar Puffs & Cakes chicken pie - Pastry: Described by Polar as a buttery, golden, tender-flaky crust - Filling: Chicken chunks, diced button mushroom and mixed vegetables - Price: S$3.20 on Polar's own online store (as of October 2026, check before you go) - Where: Many mall kiosks, including Bugis Junction, a short walk from Bencoolen Street - Halal: Halal-certified, per the brand - Compared with Oven Marvel: Same price bracket Oven Marvel ended at, very easy to find, and halal. A mushroom filling and a different pastry, so it scratches the itch for a warm pie in a bag rather than the specific taste. Polar dates itself to 1926, which makes it far older than Oven Marvel (Polar Puffs & Cakes, https://polarpuffs-cakes.com/page/article/98-years-of-handcrafted-pastries-pies-a-look-at-signatures/). Its chicken pie was in the same 2019 blind taste test that included Oven Marvel (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). ### Kopi & Tarts chicken pie - Pastry: Not described in our sources; see the seller's page - Filling: Chicken (see the seller's page for details) - Price: S$3.20 (as of October 2026, check before you go) - Where: Several outlets; online orders with delivery - Halal: Halal-certified, per the seller - Compared with Oven Marvel: A dependable heartland pie at heartland prices. I have not found enough published detail about the pastry to compare it fairly. ### Balmoral Bakery chicken pie - Pastry: Not described in our sources - Filling: Chicken, carrot, potato and peas, per a 2024 review - Price: Around S$1.80 in a 2024 review (as of October 2026, check before you go) - Where: 105 Clementi Street 12, #01-06 - Halal: Not stated - Compared with Oven Marvel: The most old-school of the lot: a bakery listed as dating from 1965, with a pie that costs less than Oven Marvel did in 2009. Potato, peas and carrot will feel familiar. Balmoral is listed among Singapore's old-school bakeries, dating from 1965 (Honeycombers, https://thehoneycombers.com/singapore/old-school-traditional-cake-shops-bakery-singapore/). I could not find an official website, so check a recent listing for hours before you cross the island for it. ### Cottage Pies Cafe - Pastry: Described in reviews as a crusty, light pastry - Filling: Chicken with carrot, corn and peas; also curry chicken and other pies - Price: Not confirmed for 2026; listings from 2019 to 2022 show about S$4.20 to S$5.50 - Where: Pasir Ris (White Sands area) - Halal: Not stated - Compared with Oven Marvel: Country-style pies from a shop that has been around since the late 1990s. The corn might please anyone who remembers corn in Oven Marvel's filling. ## How do they compare at a glance? Chicken pies to buy, as of October 2026 (check before you go) | Pie | Pastry, as described | Egg | Price | Halal | Oven Marvel (closed 2022) | Flat, all-butter puff, house-made | No | S$4 (2018 to 2020) | Not stated | M Hotel | Butter puff, handmade | Not mentioned | Not confirmed | Not certified | Chicken Pie Kitchen (DonChef) | Golden, flaky crust | Half a hard-boiled egg | S$6.80 personal | No pork, no lard, not Halal-certified | Polar Puffs & Cakes | Buttery, golden, tender-flaky | Not mentioned | S$3.20 | Certified | Kopi & Tarts | Not described | Not mentioned | S$3.20 | Certified | Balmoral Bakery | Not described | Not mentioned | About S$1.80 (2024) | Not stated | Cottage Pies Cafe | Crusty, light | Not mentioned | Not confirmed | Not stated This list is short on purpose: it is about pies that share something with the one I miss. For a wider survey, [Pie Singapore's chicken pie comparison](https://piesingapore.com/best-chicken-pie-singapore/) lines up ten sellers by price, halal status and delivery. ## Which places should I not go to? Older "best pie" lists online still include shops that have closed. Do not plan a trip to these: - **Oven Marvel**, Sunshine Plaza: closed in early 2022, owners reportedly retired (Great Deals Singapore, https://www.greatdeals.com.sg/2022/03/17/oven-marvel-sunshine-plaza-closed). - **Pie Face**: the Australian chain's Singapore outlets all closed some years ago. > Memory, not a source: I have eaten a lot of chicken pies in the name of research since 2022. I have liked most of them. None of them made me stop on the pavement and close my eyes, which is an unfair test, and also the only one that matters to me. That is why the recreation kitchen exists. ## Can I just make one? Yes, and if you want the specific taste, that is the only route. The [flagship recreation](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) is my closest attempt. If you are short of time, the [weeknight version with bought all-butter puff](/recreations/weeknight-chicken-pie-bought-puff/) takes under two hours, much of it waiting. And if you want to understand why the pie tasted the way it did before you start, read [what the chicken pie tasted like](/oven-marvel-chicken-pie/). ## FAQ **Is there a chicken pie in Singapore that tastes like Oven Marvel's?** Not the same one. The closest in style are butter puff pastry chicken pies with a creamy filling, such as hotel coffee-house pies. None has Oven Marvel's flat shape and peppery bechamel exactly. The only way to get closer is to bake a recreation at home. **Where can I buy a chicken pie near Bencoolen or Bugis?** Polar Puffs & Cakes lists a kiosk at Bugis Junction. Chicken Pie Kitchen's flagship is at 39 Tyrwhitt Road in Jalan Besar, and it has a kiosk at Wisma Atria on Orchard Road. Check each seller's site for current outlets and hours. **Which of these chicken pies are halal?** Polar Puffs & Cakes and Kopi & Tarts state that they are halal-certified. Chicken Pie Kitchen states no pork and no lard but is not Halal-certified. We could not confirm the status of the others; ask the seller. **Is Don Pie the same as Oven Marvel?** No. They were separate businesses with different founders and different pies. Don's pies are an old-school Hainanese style with half a hard-boiled egg inside; Oven Marvel's pie was flat all-butter puff with no egg. --- # About this site URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/about/ Quick answer: ovenmarvel.com is a fan tribute to Oven Marvel, the Sunshine Plaza bakery that closed in 2022. It is written in the first person by a Singapore home baker, cites dated public sources for every historical claim, labels every recipe as a home recreation, and uses illustrations rather than real photos. It is not affiliated with Oven Marvel. ## What is ovenmarvel.com? ovenmarvel.com is a fan tribute to **Oven Marvel**, a small takeaway bakery on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore, best known for its flat all-butter puff pastry chicken pie. The shop traded from at least 2009, first as Delicious Muffins, and closed in early 2022. This site has three jobs: 1. **An archive.** A careful, sourced account of what the shop was, built only from dated reviews and reports, with the gaps admitted. Start with [the Oven Marvel story](/the-oven-marvel-story/) and [what we know and what we do not](/what-we-know/). 2. **A love letter.** First-person memories of the pie, clearly marked as memories. 3. **A recreation kitchen.** Home recipes that try to bake the taste back, with a running [log of attempts](/recreation-log/). ## Who writes it? The site is written in one voice: an unnamed Singapore home baker who loved that pie and has been trying to recreate it since the shutters came down. "I" on every page is that narrator. The narrator has no connection to the shop, never knew Chef Johnny Ngiam or his family, and has no inside information. Everything beyond personal memory comes from public sources. ## Who publishes it? Not the shop. ovenmarvel.com is a fan tribute. Oven Marvel, Chef Johnny Ngiam and the shop's former owners have not endorsed it and take no part in it, and you cannot buy their pies here. This site is published by people who really love great pies. The same publisher runs a small family of other Singapore pie sites. When one of those sites covers something in more depth than a fan tribute should, such as reheating a chicken pie, today's pie shops or the Don pie story, a page here may link to it in the text. Those links are chosen the way every other link here is chosen: because they are the most useful next thing to read. Nobody pays for them, and they never replace a source. ## How is the history researched? Every date, price, name and event on this site comes from a dated public source: food blogs such as ieatishootipost, springtomorrow, slowchomp and umakemehungry; reviews on Burpple; Miss Tam Chiak's 2019 blind taste test; SETHLUI.com; and the March 2022 closure report from Great Deals Singapore. Each claim links to its source where it appears, and the [sources page](/sources/) lists them all with notes. The rules I follow: - **If a source says it, I cite it.** Where I paraphrase, I paraphrase closely; where I quote, I quote at most one short phrase from a source, with attribution. - **If sources disagree, I show both** and say which I lean towards and why. - **If nobody has recorded it, I say so** rather than filling the gap. The opening year and the recipe are the two biggest gaps. - **Second-hand is labelled second-hand.** The retirement reason for the closure, for example, is "reportedly". - **Pages I could not read are not cited** for their content, even if their titles are suggestive. ## How are the memories handled? Personal memories appear in marked boxes labelled "Memory, not a source". They agree with what reviewers recorded, they add colour, and they never carry the weight of a fact. Where a memory and a dated source disagree, the source wins. ## How are the recipes made? Every recipe in the [recreation kitchen](/recreations/) is a **home recreation**, written from the published descriptions of the pie and standard pastry technique. None of them is Oven Marvel's recipe, which has never been published. The recipes use weights in grams, oven temperatures in Celsius, and food-safe practice: chicken cooked to at least 75 C, fillings cooled quickly and refrigerated, leftovers reheated until piping hot. The "closeness to memory" scores in the log are the narrator's opinion and nothing more. ## Are the photographs real? No. **Every image on this site is an illustration** generated for it, in the style of an early-2010s food blog snapshot. None shows the real shop, the real chef, Sunshine Plaza itself or a real Oven Marvel pie. Captions say so where it matters. If you want to see the real thing, the original blog posts on the [sources page](/sources/) have photographs taken at the time. ## What does this site not do? It does not sell pies. It does not run ads, analytics, tracking cookies, comment sections or reader reviews. It does not publish invented testimonials or ratings. Reader memories may be added in future only if the sender agrees, and they will be marked as reader-supplied. ## How do I correct something? Email hello@ovenmarvel.com with the page, the claim and, ideally, a source. Corrections that are backed by a dated source are made quickly and noted on the page. If you are connected to Oven Marvel and would like anything changed or removed, please write; your request will be taken seriously. You can also read [how to share a memory](/share-a-memory/). ## When was this site last updated? October 2026. Pages show their own last-updated line under the headline. --- # Share a memory of Oven Marvel URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/share-a-memory/ Quick answer: To share an Oven Marvel memory, email hello@ovenmarvel.com with what you remember, roughly when, and whether we may publish it and under what name. Photos you took yourself, receipts and dated details are especially welcome. Nothing is published without your permission, and reader memories are always marked as reader-supplied. ## Why does this page exist? Because the public record of Oven Marvel has holes, and some of them can only be filled by people who were there. Nobody has published the year the shop opened, the date it changed its name from Delicious Muffins, what the sign looked like, or what the owners said when they closed. I have listed every gap on [what we know and what we do not](/what-we-know/). If you can fill one, I would love to hear from you. There are no reader memories on this site yet. I would rather leave this page empty than invent them. ## How do I send a memory? By email, to hello@ovenmarvel.com. There is no form, account or upload button, on purpose: no data collected by a website, just an email you control. A useful message includes: 1. **What you remember.** The pie, the queue, the bag, the smell, the price you paid, the day it ran out before you got there. 2. **Roughly when.** A year is perfect. "When I was working nearby, around 2015" is fine. 3. **How you know.** Did you eat there often? Once? Did you work in the building? 4. **Permission.** Say whether I may publish it, and how you would like to be credited: full name, first name, initials, or not at all. ## What kinds of memories help most? What would help the archive most | If you have | It could help with | A photo you took of the shop or a pie, with a date | Signage, packaging, the size and shape of the pie | An old receipt or price you wrote down | Filling gaps in the [price history](/oven-marvel-prices-2009-2022/) | A memory of the shop before 2009 | The opening year, which nobody has published | A memory of the rename from Delicious Muffins | Dating the change, currently "between 2009 and 2013" | A memory of the last weeks in 2022 | The final trading day | Detail about the filling, especially corn | Settling the corn question for the [recreation](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) ## What will happen to my email? I will read it, reply if you would like a reply, and do one of three things with your permission: - **Publish it** on a future reader-memories section, marked clearly as reader-supplied, credited the way you asked. - **Use it to check a fact**, without quoting you, perhaps changing a "we could not confirm" to a "a reader who worked nearby remembers". - **Keep it private**, if that is what you prefer. Some memories are just nice to have been told. Reader memories will never be presented as sourced facts. A memory, however vivid, sits in a different box from a dated review. ## What will never be published? - Anything without your permission. - Personal details about Chef Johnny Ngiam, the family or anyone who worked in the shop, beyond what they themselves have made public. - Claims about why the shop closed that go beyond what has been reported. - Photos you did not take yourself. - Anything that is really an advert for another business. ## Are you connected to the shop? If you are part of the Oven Marvel family, or worked there, thank you for every pie. If you would like anything on this site corrected, changed or removed, please email and say so. Your wishes come first. ## A note on privacy Emails are not shared or sold, and there is no mailing list. The address hello@ovenmarvel.com exists only to receive memories and corrections for this site. Who writes the site, and how, is explained on the [about page](/about/). ## FAQ **Will my memory appear on the site straight away?** No. Every submission is read first, and nothing is published without your explicit permission. Some memories will help correct or confirm a fact quietly without being quoted at all. **Can I stay anonymous?** Yes. Tell us how you would like to be credited: full name, first name, initials or not at all. **Can I send photos?** Yes, if you took them yourself and are happy for them to be shown. Please do not send photos copied from blogs or social media; link to them instead. --- # The flagship: a flat butter-puff chicken pie in the Oven Marvel style (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/ Makes 6 pies. Total time 420 minutes. Quick answer: To make an Oven Marvel-style chicken pie, make all-butter rough puff with four letter folds, poach chicken thigh gently, fold it with onion, carrot, potato and peas into a medium-thick bechamel seasoned with white pepper, and chill it. Sandwich about 130 g of cold filling between two 3 mm pastry rounds, chill the shaped pies, then bake hot until deep gold. ## Ingredients ### Rough puff pastry - 250 g plain flour, chilled, plus extra for rolling - 250 g unsalted butter, cold, in 1.5 cm cubes - 4 g fine salt - 120 g iced water ### Peppery chicken filling - 400 g boneless, skinless chicken thigh - 450 g water, for poaching - 100 g onion, finely diced - 60 g carrot, 5 mm dice - 120 g waxy potato, 1 cm dice - 45 g unsalted butter, 10 g for the vegetables, 35 g for the roux - 35 g plain flour - 150 g whole milk, warmed - 150 g chicken poaching liquid, reserved from poaching - 70 g frozen peas - 2 g ground white pepper, about 1 level teaspoon, divided - 2 g sugar - 5 g fine salt, to taste, plus a pinch for poaching ### To finish - 1 egg yolk, for glazing the pastry only; use milk if you prefer - 15 g milk, for the glaze ## Method 1. **Make the pastry.** Make the rough puff pastry, giving it four letter folds with rests in between, exactly as in the rough puff recipe. Wrap it and chill for at least an hour, or overnight. 2. **Poach the chicken gently.** Put the chicken thighs in a small pan with the water and a pinch of salt. Bring to the barest simmer, cover, and cook gently for about 20 minutes, until the thickest piece reads at least 75 C and the meat is just starting to separate along its fibres. Lift out, reserve 150 g of the liquid, and cut the chicken into 1.5 cm chunks. 3. **Cook the vegetables.** Simmer the potato dice in salted water for about 8 minutes until just tender, then drain. Meanwhile melt 10 g of the butter and cook the onion and carrot gently for 6 to 8 minutes, until soft but not coloured. 4. **Make the bechamel.** Melt the remaining 35 g butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes without browning. Whisk in the warm milk and the reserved poaching liquid a splash at a time. Simmer, stirring, for at least 2 minutes after it thickens. It should coat a spoon thickly. Stir in half the white pepper. 5. **Fold, season and cool.** Fold the chicken, potato, onion, carrot and the frozen peas into the sauce. Add the sugar, the rest of the white pepper and salt to taste. Spread in a shallow tray, press baking paper onto the surface, and refrigerate once it stops steaming. Chill for at least 2 hours, until completely cold. 6. **Roll and cut.** Roll the pastry on a lightly floured cold surface to about 3 mm. Cut six 12 cm rounds for the bases and six 13 cm rounds for the lids, re-rolling the scraps once after a short chill. Lay the bases on a lined tray. Chill all the rounds for 15 minutes. 7. **Fill and seal.** Put about 130 g of cold filling in the centre of each base and flatten it to a disc about 1.5 cm high, leaving a 1.5 cm border. Brush the border with water, lay a lid on top, press out any air, and seal the edges firmly with a fork. Cut a small steam slit in each lid. 8. **Chill the shaped pies.** This is the step that saves the layers. Chill the tray for 30 minutes in the fridge, or 15 minutes in the freezer, until the pastry feels firm. Meanwhile heat the oven to 210 C (fan 190 C) with a heavy baking tray inside. 9. **Glaze and bake.** Beat the yolk with the milk and brush it thinly over the lids, keeping it off the cut edges so they can rise. Slide the pies, on their paper, onto the hot tray. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 190 C (fan 170 C) and bake 15 to 20 minutes more, until deep golden on top and browned underneath. The filling should be at least 75 C in the centre. 10. **Rest, then eat warm.** Rest the pies on a rack for 10 minutes. The filling is dangerously hot straight from the oven and needs a moment to set. Then eat one standing up, out of a paper bag, the way it should be. ## What is this pie trying to be? This recipe is my attempt at the Oven Marvel chicken pie as reviewers recorded it between 2009 and 2020. The targets, each one sourced: - **Pastry:** house-made, all butter, puff (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Crisp on top, chewy where it meets the sauce (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), "not overly flaky" but light (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). - **Shape:** flat and round, pastry top and bottom (Miss Tam Chiak, https://www.misstamchiak.com/best-pies-in-singapore/). - **Chicken:** thigh, cooked slowly until the fibres just start to separate (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). - **Sauce:** homemade bechamel, medium-thick, peppery. - **Vegetables:** peas, onion, carrot and soft potato. - **No egg** in the filling. Everything else, the quantities, temperatures and timings, is mine. Oven Marvel's own recipe has never been published, and I have no inside knowledge of it. ## Why rough puff and not full puff? Rough puff gives about 80 butter sheets after four letter folds, against several hundred for classic puff. For a flat pie, that is plenty, and it matches the "light, not over-flaky" description better than a towering classic puff would. It is also far more forgiving in a warm kitchen. The equal-weight flour-to-butter ratio and 30-minute chills follow a Singapore home baker's rough puff method (Singapore Noodles (Substack), https://sgpnoodles.substack.com/p/eurasian-chicken-pie), tuned for a thinner, flatter pie. ## Why chill the pies before baking? Because Singapore is warm and butter is not. By the time six pies are filled and crimped, the edges have softened. A professional Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel rests his shaped butter puff pies at 1 to 3 C for about two hours for the same reason (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html). At home, 30 minutes in the fridge does most of the job. Skip it, and the butter melts out before the layers can lift. I learnt this the greasy way, as the [recreation log](/recreation-log/) shows. ## Why such a hot start? A blast of heat at 210 C makes the water in the butter turn to steam quickly, which is what separates the layers. Dropping to 190 C after 15 minutes lets the base and the centre cook through without the top burning. Baking on a preheated heavy tray puts heat straight into the base, the best defence against a soggy bottom under a creamy filling. ## How close does it get? On my own scale, and it is only my opinion, an 8 out of 10. The pastry is right. The pepper is right. The filling is close. What is missing is harder to name: a certain richness to the sauce that I suspect came from a better stock, or perhaps a little more butter than I am brave enough to use. The full story of how I got here, including the soup-with-a-hat incident, is in the [recreation log](/recreation-log/). > Memory, not a source: The test I use is the first bite at the edge, where the lid is sealed to the base. If the layers there crackle and then go soft and buttery against the tongue, it is right. Attempt seven was the first time I got that, and I made a small involuntary noise in my own kitchen. ## What are the most common mistakes? 1. **Warm filling.** It melts the pastry from the inside. The filling must be fridge-cold. 2. **Too much filling.** Overfilled flat pies burst at the seam. About 130 g for a 12 cm base is the limit. 3. **Glaze on the cut edges.** Egg wash glues the layers together so they cannot rise. Glaze the top only. 4. **A pale base.** Use a preheated tray on a low shelf, and do not take the pies out until the underside is brown. 5. **Under-seasoning.** A filling that tastes right warm will taste bland cold, and you season it cold. Be generous with the white pepper. ## How do I store and reheat leftovers? Cool the pies on a rack, then refrigerate within two hours of baking, and eat within three days (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety). Reheat on a rack at 180 C for 15 to 20 minutes, until the centre reaches 75 C. Oven Marvel's own staff advised letting a chilled pie stand for 10 to 15 minutes before reheating, and that tip works. The full method is in [reheating puff pastry pies](/technique/reheating-puff-pastry-pies/). Baked pies freeze well too, wrapped, for up to three months. Whether to thaw them first or reheat straight from frozen is the question [donchickenpie.com's freezing test](https://donchickenpie.com/experiments/freezing-and-thawing-chicken-pie/) set out to answer, and my own frozen-pie timings are on the reheating page. ## What variations are worth trying? - **Sweet corn**, for those who remember it: 50 to 60 g with the peas. - **More pepper**, if you remember it hotter: go to 3 g. - **A quicker version** with bought all-butter puff: the [weeknight pie](/recreations/weeknight-chicken-pie-bought-puff/). - **The same pastry, curried:** the [curry puff recreation](/recreations/curry-puff/). --- # Rough puff pastry for a tropical kitchen (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/ Makes 6 pies. Total time 165 minutes. Quick answer: For all-butter rough puff in a hot kitchen, toss equal weights of cold cubed butter and chilled plain flour with salt, bind with iced water, and rest 30 minutes. Roll to a long rectangle and fold in thirds four times, chilling 30 minutes after each fold or pair of folds. Chill again after shaping and bake in a fully hot oven. ## Ingredients ### Pastry (about 620 g) - 250 g plain flour, chilled in the freezer for 20 minutes - 250 g unsalted butter, cold, in 1.5 cm cubes - 4 g fine salt - 120 g iced water, measured without the ice - 5 g lemon juice, optional, about 1 teaspoon ## Method 1. **Chill the butter cubes.** Spread the butter cubes on a plate and freeze them for 15 minutes while you weigh everything else. They should be very firm but not frozen solid. 2. **Mix, keeping the butter in lumps.** Whisk the flour and salt in a cold bowl. Add the butter and toss to coat. Squash each cube flat between your fingertips, working fast, so you have flakes of butter coated in flour. Do not rub it in: you want visible pieces the size of your thumbnail. 3. **Bind with iced water.** Mix the lemon juice, if using, into the iced water. Drizzle most of it over the flour and stir with a table knife until a shaggy dough forms. Add the rest only if dry patches remain. Press into a rough rectangle, wrap, and chill for 30 minutes. 4. **First and second folds.** On a cold, lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a rectangle about 45 by 15 cm. It will look messy; that is normal. Brush off excess flour, fold the bottom third up and the top third down like a letter, then turn it a quarter. Roll and fold once more. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes. 5. **Third and fourth folds.** Repeat: roll to 45 by 15 cm, fold in thirds, turn, roll and fold again. The dough should now be smooth with fine streaks of butter. If it turns greasy at any point, stop and chill it before continuing. 6. **Rest before using.** Wrap and chill for at least 1 hour before rolling out for pies, or up to 2 days. It also freezes well for up to 3 months; thaw overnight in the fridge. 7. **Shape, then chill again.** Roll to about 3 mm, cut and fill as your recipe says, and chill the shaped pastry for 30 minutes in the fridge or 15 in the freezer before baking. Bake in a fully preheated oven, ideally on a hot tray. ## Why make your own pastry? Because the one thing every reviewer noticed about Oven Marvel was the butter. Leslie Tay picked out the aroma of real butter, not margarine, in pastry made on the premises (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Bought puff pastry is often made with other fats, and even the good all-butter ones are rolled thinner and more evenly than the slightly rustic, chewy-inside pastry reviewers describe (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/). Making your own is the only way to control both. ## Where does this method come from? From standard rough puff technique, adjusted by a lot of trial and error in a warm flat. The equal weights of flour and butter, the third-folds and the 30-minute chills follow a rough puff published by a Singapore home cook for a Eurasian chicken pie (Singapore Noodles (Substack), https://sgpnoodles.substack.com/p/eurasian-chicken-pie). I removed the sugar, cut the folds to four and moved almost every rest into the fridge. None of this comes from Oven Marvel, whose recipe was never published. ## How many layers does it make? Four letter folds multiply the butter by three each time: one, three, nine, 27, 81. (The fold itself, dough folded in three like a business letter, is shown step by step in [the chickenpie.net glossary](https://chickenpie.net/glossary/letter-fold).) Real rough puff has butter in flattened lumps rather than perfect sheets, so treat 81 as a ceiling. Play with the numbers here: [Interactive LaminationCounter on the web page] ## How do I keep it cold enough? The rules that matter most in Singapore: - **Start early or start cold.** Before 9am, or with the aircon on in the kitchen. - **Chill the flour too**, not just the butter. Warm flour softens butter on contact. - **Use a cold surface.** A marble board or a steel tray from the fridge. - **Rest more often than the recipe says if you need to.** Greasy, sticky dough is asking for the fridge. - **Chill again after shaping.** The trick that professional kitchens use: a Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel rests his shaped butter puff pies at 1 to 3 C for about two hours before baking (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, https://hi-life.hongleong.com.sg/December2018/live-article07.html). Thirty minutes is enough for small home pies. There is a whole guide on [laminating in Singapore heat](/technique/laminating-in-singapore-heat/) with a troubleshooting table. ## What should the dough look like at each stage? - **After mixing:** shaggy, with obvious flakes and lumps of butter. It will not look like pastry yet. - **After the first two folds:** a rough rectangle with marbled streaks, a few torn patches, butter visible on the surface in places. - **After four folds:** smooth, pale, with fine butter streaks you can see through the surface. It should feel cool and firm, like modelling clay from the fridge. > Memory, not a source: The first time the dough turned smooth on the fourth fold I thought I had ruined it, because I was so used to it looking wrecked. It was simply ready. That batch became attempt five, the first one I was not embarrassed to give away. ## How do I bake it? Hot. This pastry wants 200 to 210 C at the start, so that the water in the butter flashes to steam and lifts the layers before the butter can run out. A preheated tray underneath helps the base. Specific times are in each recipe: the [flagship chicken pie](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/), the [curry puff](/recreations/curry-puff/), or anything else you fancy. ## Can I freeze it? Yes. Wrap the finished block tightly and freeze for up to three months. Thaw it overnight in the fridge, never on the counter. Better still, shape and fill the pies, freeze them unbaked on a tray, then bag them; they bake beautifully from frozen with a few extra minutes. ## Common problems - **Butter breaking through the surface:** dust with a pinch of flour, chill 15 minutes, carry on more gently. - **Dough springing back:** the gluten needs a longer rest. - **Shrinking in the oven:** rested too little after rolling. Chill shaped pastry before baking. - **Butter pooling on the tray:** the pastry was warm when it went into the oven, or the oven was not fully hot. --- # Peppery chicken thigh bechamel filling (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/peppery-chicken-bechamel-filling/ Makes 6 pies. Total time 185 minutes. Quick answer: Poach chicken thigh at a bare simmer until it reaches 75 C, then dice it. Make a medium-thick bechamel with 35 g butter and 35 g flour to 300 g of milk and poaching liquid, season with white pepper in two stages, fold in onion, carrot, potato and peas, and chill completely in a shallow tray before filling any pastry. ## Ingredients ### Chicken - 400 g boneless, skinless chicken thigh - 450 g water - 1 g fine salt, a pinch, for poaching ### Vegetables - 120 g waxy potato, 1 cm dice - 100 g onion, finely diced - 60 g carrot, 5 mm dice - 10 g unsalted butter - 70 g frozen peas - sweet corn, 50 to 60 g drained, optional ### Bechamel - 35 g unsalted butter - 35 g plain flour - 150 g whole milk, warmed - 150 g chicken poaching liquid, warm - 2 g ground white pepper, divided - 2 g sugar - 4 g fine salt, or to taste ## Method 1. **Poach the chicken.** Put the chicken, water and a pinch of salt in a small pan. Bring to the barest simmer, cover and cook gently for about 20 minutes. The thickest piece should reach at least 75 C and the meat should just begin to separate along its fibres. A rolling boil makes thigh stringy; keep it quiet. 2. **Rest and dice.** Lift the chicken onto a board and let it rest for 5 minutes, then cut it into 1.5 cm chunks. Strain and keep 150 g of the poaching liquid; the rest makes a good cook's soup. 3. **Par-cook the potato.** Simmer the potato dice in salted water for about 8 minutes, until a knife slides in with a little resistance. Drain well. Some pieces will soften further in the sauce, which is what you want. 4. **Soften the onion and carrot.** Melt the 10 g butter over a low heat and cook the onion and carrot for 6 to 8 minutes, until soft and sweet but not coloured. 5. **Cook the roux.** In a clean pan, melt the 35 g butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring, until it smells nutty but is still pale. 6. **Whisk in the liquid.** Add the warm milk and poaching liquid a splash at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Bring to a gentle simmer and keep it there, stirring, for at least 2 minutes after it thickens. Stir in half the white pepper. 7. **Fold everything together.** Off the heat, fold in the chicken, potato, onion and carrot, the frozen peas (and corn, if using). Add the sugar, the remaining white pepper and salt. Taste, remembering the filling will taste milder once cold. 8. **Cool fast, then chill.** Spread the filling in a shallow tray and press baking paper onto the surface. Refrigerate as soon as it stops steaming, within about 30 minutes, and chill for at least 2 hours until completely cold. Use within 2 days. ## What is this filling based on? On what reviewers wrote about the Oven Marvel pie, not on a recipe from the shop, which was never published. The sourced descriptions: - **Chicken thigh** cooked slowly until the fibres just begin to separate, and only then combined with the sauce (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). - **Homemade bechamel**, described as medium-thick (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/) and flowing slowly when the pie was cut (springtomorrow, https://www.springtomorrow.com/oven-marvel-%E7%9A%87%E5%86%A0%E7%83%98%E5%9F%B9-sunshine-plaza-the-best-chicken-pies-in-singapore/). - **Peas, onion and carrot** (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), with **potato** that some remember in chunks and one reviewer as a peppery mashed and smashed filling (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). - **White pepper**, and a slightly sweet finish (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). The weights, temperatures and method are mine. ## Why poach rather than fry the chicken? Two reasons. Poaching at a bare simmer cooks thigh gently, which matches the "fibres just separating" texture Leslie Tay described, rather than the firm, browned chunks you get from frying. And the poaching liquid becomes the stock for the sauce, so nothing is wasted and the sauce tastes of chicken rather than of milk alone. Always check the thickest piece reaches 75 C. A cheap probe thermometer is the best kitchen tool I have bought for this whole project. ## Why split the white pepper? White pepper added early mellows into a deep, rounded warmth; added late, it keeps its sharper aroma. Using half of each gives you both. The quantity here, about 2 g for roughly 900 g of filling, is what I call the old-school level. If you are cautious, start at 1 g. The [white pepper guide](/technique/white-pepper/) explains the difference between white and black pepper and why white suits a pale sauce. ## Why does it need to be so cold? Two reasons that happen to agree with each other. **Food safety.** Cooked chicken and milk sauce are exactly the foods that should not linger between about 5 C and 60 C, the danger zone where bacteria multiply quickly (Singapore Food Agency, https://www.sfa.gov.sg/tools-and-resources/glossary-a-z-on-food-safety). A Singapore kitchen keeps food in that zone for a long time, so spread the filling thin, get it into the fridge quickly, and use it within two days, comfortably inside general leftover guidance (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety). **Pastry.** Warm filling melts the butter layers in puff pastry from the inside. The base goes soggy and the layers fuse. Cold filling keeps the butter solid until the oven does its work. ## How thick should it be? It should hold together on a spoon and slide off slowly, with some potato collapsing into the sauce. If you draw a finger across the back of a coated spoon, the line should stay clean. The full explanation, with ratios for thinner and thicker sauces, is in [bechamel thickness for pie filling](/technique/bechamel-thickness-for-pie-filling/). > Memory, not a source: I taste the filling three times: hot, warm, and straight from the fridge the next morning. The fridge test is the honest one. It is how the filling will taste once it is inside pastry and baked, and it is always milder than I expect. ## How much filling goes into each pie? About 130 g for a flat pie on a 12 cm base, which this batch covers six times with a spoonful or two to spare. For smaller party pies on 8 cm bases, use about 50 g each and expect around 16 pies. ## What else can I use it for? - **A pot pie:** spoon it into a baking dish, cover with a single sheet of puff pastry and bake. - **Vol-au-vents:** warm it through gently and spoon into baked pastry cases. - **On toast:** reheat until piping hot, stir in a little extra milk, and pile it on thick toast. Not authentic. Very good. --- # The weeknight version, with good bought all-butter puff (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/weeknight-chicken-pie-bought-puff/ Makes 4 pies. Total time 110 minutes. Quick answer: For a quick Oven Marvel-style pie, fry diced chicken thigh in butter until it reaches 75 C, make a peppery bechamel in the same pan with onion, carrot, potato and peas, and freeze it in a thin layer for 20 minutes. Cut 12 cm rounds from two sheets of chilled all-butter puff, fill, seal, chill 15 minutes, and bake at 200 C for 25 to 30 minutes. ## Ingredients ### Pastry - 640 g all-butter puff pastry, two ready-rolled sheets, kept in the fridge - 1 egg yolk, beaten with a splash of milk, for glazing only ### Quick filling - 350 g boneless, skinless chicken thigh, 1.5 cm pieces - 40 g unsalted butter, divided - 90 g onion, finely diced - 50 g carrot, 5 mm dice - 100 g waxy potato, 8 mm dice - 30 g plain flour - 160 g whole milk - 100 g chicken stock, low salt - 60 g frozen peas - 1.6 g ground white pepper, a scant teaspoon, divided - 3 g fine salt, to taste - 1 g sugar, a pinch ## Method 1. **Boil the potato and carrot.** Simmer the potato and carrot together in salted water for 6 minutes, until just tender. Drain. 2. **Cook the chicken.** Melt 10 g of the butter in a wide pan over a medium heat. Add the chicken in one layer and cook, turning, for 6 to 8 minutes until no longer pink and at least 75 C inside. Do not brown it hard. Tip onto a plate with its juices. 3. **Make the sauce in the same pan.** Lower the heat, add the remaining butter and the onion, and soften for 4 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the milk and stock and simmer for 2 minutes after it thickens. Add half the white pepper. 4. **Combine and freeze-chill.** Fold in the chicken and its juices, the potato, carrot and frozen peas, the sugar, the rest of the pepper and salt to taste. Spread thinly on a plate or tray and freeze for 20 minutes, then move it to the fridge until cold to the touch. 5. **Heat the oven and cut the pastry.** Heat the oven to 200 C (fan 180 C) with a baking tray inside. Unroll the cold pastry and cut four 12 cm rounds from one sheet for the bases and four 13 cm rounds from the other for the lids. A small bowl and a sharp knife work well. 6. **Fill and seal.** Put the bases on baking paper. Add about 140 g of cold filling to each, flattened to 1.5 cm high with a 1.5 cm border. Wet the border, add the lids, press out air and seal with a fork. Cut a small slit in each top. 7. **Chill briefly.** Freeze the pies on their paper for 15 minutes, until the pastry is firm. 8. **Glaze and bake.** Brush the tops thinly with the yolk, avoiding the edges. Slide the paper onto the hot tray and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until deep golden and crisp underneath. Rest for 10 minutes before eating. ## When should I make this version? When it is Wednesday, you want the pie, and you do not have a day. This recipe keeps the things that matter most, the butter, the flat shape, the peppery cream filling, and skips the lamination and overnight chilling. It loses some of the soft, chewy inner layer that home-made rough puff gives, which is why I score it lower. It is still the recipe I make most often. ## Why does the pastry have to be all butter? Because butter is the flavour people remember. Leslie Tay picked out the smell of butter rather than margarine in Oven Marvel's pastry (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/), and nothing else in a chicken pie is as noticeable. Many shop-bought puff pastries use vegetable fats. They are cheaper and easier to handle, and they taste of very little. Read the ingredients list and look for butter as the only fat. It costs more and it is worth it here. ## How do I keep bought puff from going soggy? Bought pastry is thinner and more even than home-made, so it puffs beautifully but has less margin for error against a wet filling. Three habits help: 1. **Cold filling, always.** The freezer chill in step four is not optional. Warm filling turns the base to paste. 2. **A hot tray underneath.** Preheating the tray sends heat straight into the base. 3. **Do not overfill.** About 140 g per 12 cm pie. More, and the seal bursts. ## Is the chicken cooked safely? Yes, if you check. Pieces of thigh cooked over a medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes should reach 75 C at the centre. Cut the largest piece open or use a probe thermometer. The filling then goes into the pie fully cooked, so the bake only has to heat it through. Do not leave the filling sitting on the counter while you get on with other things: cooked food in a warm kitchen enters the danger zone quickly (Singapore Food Agency, https://www.sfa.gov.sg/tools-and-resources/glossary-a-z-on-food-safety), which is one more reason for the freezer chill. ## How does it compare with the flagship? Two ways to the same memory | | Weeknight | Flagship | Pastry | Bought all-butter puff | Home-made all-butter rough puff | Chicken | Pan-cooked thigh | Gently poached thigh | Sauce liquid | Milk and bought stock | Milk and poaching liquid | Time | About 1 hr 50 min | About 7 hours, mostly chilling | Closeness, my opinion | 6 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 > Memory, not a source: The weeknight pie is attempt four in the log, refined. It was the first time the house smelled like a ground-floor corridor on Bencoolen Street, if only for the first minute after the oven door opened. ## Can I freeze these? Yes, unbaked. Freeze the sealed, unglazed pies on a tray, then bag them. Bake from frozen at 200 C for 35 to 40 minutes, glazing after the first 10 minutes, and check the centre is at least 75 C. Baked pies can be frozen too; see [reheating puff pastry pies](/technique/reheating-puff-pastry-pies/) for how to bring them back without a soggy base. ## Where next? When you have a free Saturday, try the full [flagship recreation](/recreations/butter-puff-chicken-pie/) with home-made [rough puff](/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/). The difference is mostly in that inner layer, and once you have tasted it, the weeknight version starts to feel like a sketch of the real drawing. --- # Curry puffs in butter puff pastry (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/curry-puff/ Makes 12 puffs. Total time 270 minutes. Quick answer: To make an Oven Marvel-style curry puff, boil waxy potatoes whole in their skins, peel and dice them, then fry them with onion, garlic, diced chicken thigh and a home-ground curry powder until the chicken reaches 75 C. Chill the filling, wrap 35 g portions in 10 cm rounds of all-butter rough puff, crimp, chill, glaze and bake at 200 C. ## Ingredients ### Pastry - 620 g all-butter rough puff pastry, one batch of the rough puff recipe, chilled - 1 egg yolk, beaten with a splash of milk, for glazing only ### Home-ground curry powder - 8 g coriander seeds - 3 g cumin seeds - 2 g fennel seeds - 2 g dried red chillies, about 2, seeds removed for less heat - 1 g black peppercorns - 1 g cinnamon stick, a 2 cm piece - 2 g ground turmeric ### Filling - 350 g waxy potatoes, small, whole, skin on - 150 g boneless chicken thigh, 1 cm dice - 100 g onion, finely chopped - 8 g garlic, 2 cloves, minced - 20 g neutral oil - 60 g water - 4 g sugar - 4 g fine salt, to taste ## Method 1. **Boil the potatoes whole.** Put the whole, unpeeled potatoes in salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 to 18 minutes, until a skewer goes in with slight resistance. Drain and leave to cool until you can handle them. 2. **Toast and grind the spices.** Toast the coriander, cumin, fennel, chillies, peppercorns and cinnamon in a dry pan over a medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, shaking, until fragrant. Cool, then grind finely and stir in the turmeric. Or use 15 g of a good meat curry powder. 3. **Peel and dice.** Peel the cooled potatoes with a small knife; the skins slip off easily. Cut into 1 cm cubes. 4. **Fry the curry.** Mix the curry powder with 30 g of the water to a paste. Heat the oil and fry the onion for 5 minutes until soft, add the garlic for 1 minute, then the curry paste. Fry, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes until it darkens and the oil starts to separate. 5. **Cook the chicken and potato.** Add the chicken and cook for 5 to 6 minutes until it reaches at least 75 C. Add the potato, sugar, salt and the remaining water and stir gently until the potato is coated and the mixture is fairly dry. Mash a few cubes against the pan to bind it. 6. **Chill the filling.** Spread on a tray, cool briefly, then refrigerate until completely cold, at least 1 hour. 7. **Roll, cut and fill.** Roll the pastry to 3 mm and cut twelve 10 cm rounds, re-rolling scraps once after a chill. Put about 35 g of filling on one half of each round, wet the edge, fold over into a half-moon, press out the air and crimp or fork the edge firmly. 8. **Chill, then bake.** Chill the shaped puffs for 30 minutes in the fridge while the oven heats to 200 C (fan 180 C) with a tray inside. Glaze the tops thinly, avoiding the cut edges, and bake on the hot tray for 22 to 25 minutes until deep golden. Cool for 10 minutes before eating. ## What was the shop's curry puff like? Oven Marvel's curry puff used the same house-made butter puff pastry as its chicken pie, wrapped around curried potato with small pieces of chicken (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). Leslie Tay recorded the potato method in some detail: the waxy local kind, boiled first in their skins, then peeled, diced and fried in a curry powder the chef ground himself (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/). There was no egg. Reviewers recorded the price at about S$2 around 2009 (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/), rising to S$2.80. The rest of this page is my recreation, because the shop never published a recipe. The spice blend in particular is my own. ## Why grind your own curry powder? Because the chef did, and because it makes an obvious difference. Freshly toasted and ground spices are louder and brighter than a jar that has been open for months. My blend is a straightforward meat curry powder, coriander-heavy, with cumin, fennel, a little chilli, black pepper, cinnamon and turmeric. It is mild enough to let the butter pastry speak. If you have a favourite Singapore curry powder, 15 g of it works fine. ## Why are the potatoes so important? In a curry puff, the potato is most of the filling. Waxy potatoes, boiled whole in their skins, hold their shape when diced and fried. Floury potatoes, or potatoes boiled after dicing, absorb water and turn to mash, and mash makes the pastry soggy. Leslie Tay's description of the shop's method (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-super-duper-addictive-chicken-pies/) is exactly what a careful pastry cook would do for that reason. A few cubes mashed against the pan at the end bind the filling without making it pasty. ## How do I stop the puffs leaking? - **Use cold, fairly dry filling.** If it is wet when you fold it, it will steam the seam open. - **Leave a clean edge.** A 1 cm border with no filling, brushed with water, then pressed hard. - **Chill the shaped puffs** for 30 minutes so the butter is firm when the oven heat hits it. - **Glaze the tops only.** Egg on the cut edges glues the layers shut so they cannot rise, and the puff splits somewhere else instead. > Memory, not a source: I remember the curry puff as the polite one: milder than a hawker puff and much richer, a warm, rounded curry rather than a hot one. My early attempts were too fierce. Cutting the chilli to two small dried ones and letting the coriander lead got me closest. ## Can I make them ahead? Yes, and they freeze better than almost anything else on this site. Freeze the shaped, unglazed puffs on a tray, then bag them. Bake from frozen at 200 C for 28 to 32 minutes, glazing after the first 10 minutes. Baked puffs keep in the fridge for up to three days (USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/leftovers-and-food-safety); reheat at 180 C for 10 to 12 minutes, until piping hot in the centre. More detail in [reheating puff pastry pies](/technique/reheating-puff-pastry-pies/). ## How does this compare with the pie? The pastry is identical. The filling is drier and spicier, there is no white sauce, and the half-moon shape means more crimped edge, which is the crunchiest part. If you are making a batch of [rough puff](/recreations/rough-puff-pastry/) anyway, a common plan is six chicken pies from one batch and a dozen curry puffs from a second. For a side-by-side of the shop's two pastries, see [the curry puff and the muffins](/oven-marvel-curry-puff-and-muffins/). --- # Banana walnut muffins in the spirit of the shop (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/banana-walnut-muffins/ Makes 12 muffins. Total time 55 minutes. Quick answer: For crisp-topped banana walnut muffins, mash very ripe bananas, mix with melted butter, brown sugar, egg and milk, then fold in flour, baking soda and baking powder until just combined with chopped walnuts. Fill the cases to the top, scatter more walnuts and sugar, and bake at 200 C for 5 minutes, then 180 C for 15 to 18 minutes. ## Ingredients ### Wet - 330 g very ripe bananas, peeled weight, about 3 large - 110 g unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled - 150 g light brown sugar - 1 large egg, about 55 g - 60 g whole milk - 5 g vanilla extract ### Dry - 250 g plain flour - 5 g baking soda, 1 teaspoon - 4 g baking powder, 1 teaspoon - 2 g fine salt - 1 g ground cinnamon, optional - 80 g walnuts, roughly chopped ### Topping - 20 g walnuts, chopped - 15 g demerara or raw sugar ## Method 1. **Heat the oven.** Heat the oven to 200 C (fan 180 C). Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. 2. **Mix the wet ingredients.** Mash the bananas well with a fork, leaving a few small lumps. Whisk in the melted butter, brown sugar, egg, milk and vanilla. 3. **Fold in the dry ingredients.** In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Tip into the wet mixture with the walnuts and fold with a spatula until there are no dry streaks and no more. Lumps are fine; overmixing makes muffins tough and peaked. 4. **Fill high and top.** Divide the batter between the cases, filling them right to the top. Scatter over the extra walnuts and the demerara sugar. 5. **Bake hot, then lower.** Bake at 200 C for 5 minutes to set a domed, crisp top, then lower the oven to 180 C (fan 160 C) without opening the door. 6. **Finish baking.** Bake for 15 to 18 minutes more, until risen, deep golden and a skewer in the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. 7. **Cool briefly.** Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then move to a rack. The tops are crispest in the first hour. ## Why is there a muffin recipe on a chicken pie site? Because the shop began as a muffin shop. In January 2009 it traded as **Delicious Muffins** (ieatishootipost (Leslie Tay), https://ieatishootipost.sg/oven-marvel-formerly-delicious-muffins-hotel-quality-homemade-puff-pastry/), and muffins stayed on the menu right to the end, alongside the pies and curry puffs. Reviewers between 2018 and 2020 named Banana Walnut, Apple Raisin, Orange Peel, Choco'Wanna and Double Chocolate Chip (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews), at roughly S$2.20 to S$2.80 each (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/). They described the muffins as baked fresh, crisp on top and moist inside (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). That description is what this recipe is built to deliver. The recipe itself is mine. ## How do I get a crisp, domed top? Three things, all standard bakery tricks. 1. **A hot start.** Five minutes at 200 C makes the outside of the batter set and rise fast, forming a dome before the inside catches up. Then the oven drops to 180 C to bake through without burning. 2. **Full cases.** Fill each case to the brim. A half-filled case gives a flat muffin with no room to dome. 3. **A sugar crust.** Demerara sugar scattered on top caramelises into a thin, crackly shell. ## Why melted butter, not creamed? Melted butter gives a denser, moister crumb, closer to a bakery banana muffin, and it means the whole thing takes one bowl and a fork. Creaming butter and sugar gives a lighter, more cake-like muffin. Both are good. For the moist inside that reviewers mention, melted wins. ## How ripe should the bananas be? Very. Heavily speckled, nearly black skins, soft inside. Ripe bananas are sweeter and more fragrant, and they make a moister muffin. In Singapore, bananas ripen fast on the counter; a bunch bought green on Monday is often perfect by Friday. Overripe bananas freeze well in their skins; thaw them in a bowl, as they release liquid, and use the liquid too. > Memory, not a source: On days the pies had sold out, the muffins were the consolation prize, and I was never disappointed by the consolation prize. I remember a heavy paper case, a top you could hear when you bit it, and walnuts that had been toasted by the oven rather than added raw. ## How should I store them? Muffins hate a humid fridge, so do not refrigerate them unless your kitchen is very hot. Cool completely, keep in a container lined with kitchen paper at room temperature, and eat within two days. They freeze well for up to two months; reheat from frozen in a 170 C oven or toaster oven for 8 to 10 minutes to bring the top back to crisp. ## Can I make the apple raisin version? Yes. Apple Raisin was another of the shop's named flavours. Replace the bananas with 200 g of coarsely grated apple (skin on) plus 60 g of extra milk, swap the walnuts for 90 g of raisins, and include the cinnamon. The batter will be a little looser; bake for the longer end of the time. For the shop's other favourite, see the [double chocolate chip muffins](/recreations/double-chocolate-chip-muffins/). For the story of the name, see [the curry puff and the muffins](/oven-marvel-curry-puff-and-muffins/). --- # Double chocolate chip muffins, the regulars' favourite (home recreation, not the original recipe) URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreations/double-chocolate-chip-muffins/ Makes 12 muffins. Total time 50 minutes. Quick answer: For double chocolate chip muffins with crisp tops, whisk flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt; stir in eggs, milk, oil and vanilla until just combined; fold in dark chocolate chips. Fill cases to the brim, add more chips on top, and bake at 200 C for 5 minutes, then 180 C for 15 to 17 minutes. ## Ingredients ### Dry - 230 g plain flour - 40 g unsweetened cocoa powder - 160 g caster sugar - 8 g baking powder, 2 teaspoons - 2 g baking soda, half a teaspoon - 2 g fine salt ### Wet - 2 large eggs - 240 g whole milk, at room temperature - 110 g neutral oil, or melted butter - 5 g vanilla extract ### Chocolate - 150 g dark chocolate chips, for the batter - 30 g dark chocolate chips, for the tops ## Method 1. **Heat the oven.** Heat the oven to 200 C (fan 180 C). Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. 2. **Whisk the dry ingredients.** Whisk the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together, breaking up any lumps of cocoa. 3. **Combine.** In a jug, whisk the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredients and fold until just combined. Fold in 150 g of the chocolate chips with the last few strokes. Stop while the batter still looks lumpy. 4. **Fill and top.** Fill the cases to the brim and press the remaining chips onto the tops. 5. **Hot start.** Bake for 5 minutes at 200 C, then lower the oven to 180 C (fan 160 C) without opening the door. 6. **Finish baking.** Bake 15 to 17 minutes more, until the tops are cracked and spring back when pressed. A skewer should come out with moist crumbs but no wet batter; melted chocolate on the skewer is fine. 7. **Cool.** Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then cool on a rack. The chocolate stays molten for about 20 minutes. ## Why this muffin? Because it was the shop's quiet star. Among the muffins reviewers named between 2018 and 2020, the **Double Chocolate Chip** is the one that comes up most often as a favourite on Burpple (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). There was also a chocolate muffin called Choco'Wanna. Prices ran from about S$2.20 to S$2.80 (SETHLUI.com, https://sethlui.com/oven-marvel-singapore/), and the descriptions keep returning to a crisp top and a moist inside (Burpple, https://www.burpple.com/oven-marvel-at-sushine-plaza/reviews). This recipe is my own, written to deliver that texture. Oven Marvel never published its recipes. ## What makes the top crack and crisp? The hot start. Five minutes at 200 C sets the outside of the batter quickly so it domes and splits, then the lower temperature lets the inside bake without drying. Filling the cases right to the top gives the dome room to rise above the paper. Chocolate chips pressed on top melt into glossy pools in the cracks, which is the look most people mean by bakery-style. ## How do I keep them moist? - **Use oil**, or oil and butter half and half. Oil-based muffins stay soft for longer, which matters in Singapore humidity, where muffins tend to go either sticky or stale. - **Do not overmix.** Stop as soon as the flour disappears. Overmixed batter makes tough, tunnelled muffins. - **Start checking early.** Chocolate hides colour, so use a skewer from 15 minutes after the temperature drops. Moist crumbs are right; clean is slightly over. > Memory, not a source: I was a banana walnut person until a friend handed me half of a chocolate one on a bench outside the shop. I remember the top more than the inside: dark, crackly, with chips that had gone soft and glossy. I have been chasing the top ever since and do not mind admitting I am still chasing it. ## How should I store them? At room temperature in a container lined with kitchen paper, for up to two days. They freeze well for up to two months. Warm a frozen muffin in a 170 C oven for 8 to 10 minutes and the chocolate goes molten again. ## Variations - **Choco-banana:** fold in 100 g of mashed ripe banana and reduce the milk by 60 g. - **Orange chocolate:** add the finely grated zest of one orange, a nod to the shop's Orange Peel muffin. - **Less sweet:** cut the sugar to 130 g and use chips with 60 per cent cocoa or more. For the shop's other named flavour, try the [banana walnut muffins](/recreations/banana-walnut-muffins/), which include an apple raisin variation. For the history of the muffins, including why a pie shop sold them at all, see [the curry puff and the muffins](/oven-marvel-curry-puff-and-muffins/). --- # The recreation log URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/recreation-log/ ## Attempt 1: The panic pie (April 2022) What changed: Everything, in the sense that there was no plan. A month after the closure I bought a sheet of supermarket puff pastry, used leftover roast chicken, a tin-style creamy sauce, black pepper, and a deep foil tin because that is what I owned. What went wrong: Domed and tall instead of flat. The pastry smelled of nothing in particular, because it was not all butter. Black pepper gave sharp specks instead of warmth. It was a perfectly nice chicken pie, which was the problem. Verdict: A chicken pie. Not that chicken pie. Lesson one: shape and fat matter more than I thought. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 3/10. ## Attempt 2: Chicken soup with a hat (June 2022) What changed: My first rough puff, made on a June afternoon with no aircon. A home-made bechamel, using the proportions from a pasta-bake recipe. Filling went in while still warm because I was impatient. What went wrong: The butter melted into the dough as I folded, and the pastry baked like a scone. The sauce was far too thin and the warm filling softened the base before it reached the oven. The pies leaked across the tray. Verdict: Tasted closer than attempt one and looked much worse. Lesson two: temperature, temperature, temperature. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 2/10. ## Attempt 3: Seven in the morning (August 2022) What changed: Flour in the freezer overnight, butter cubes frozen for 15 minutes, aircon on in the kitchen, folds done before 9am with a 30-minute rest after each. Thicker bechamel, filling chilled overnight. What went wrong: Nothing dramatic, finally. But the filling was bland. I had used a polite half teaspoon of white pepper for six pies. Verdict: The first pastry that shattered. Lesson three: the weather is an ingredient, so work around it. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 5/10. ## Attempt 4: The weeknight shortcut (November 2022) What changed: Bought puff again, but all-butter this time, read off the ingredients list in the shop. Diced chicken thigh cooked in the pan instead of leftover roast chicken. Freezer chill for the filling. What went wrong: Flatter and butterier than attempt one, but the bought pastry was too even and too thin to give that chewy, soaked inner layer. Still under-peppered. Verdict: Good enough to become a regular dinner. The weeknight recipe on this site is this attempt, refined. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 5/10. ## Attempt 5: Doubling the white pepper (February 2023) What changed: Home-made rough puff again, with four folds; it turned smooth on the fourth and I nearly threw it out, thinking I had overworked it. White pepper doubled and split, half in the sauce and half at the end. What went wrong: The bases were pale and a little soft, and butter pooled on the tray around two of the six pies. Verdict: The kitchen smelled right for the first time. The first batch I was not embarrassed to give away. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 6/10. ## Attempt 6: Potato and the corn question (May 2023) What changed: Added diced waxy potato, par-boiled, and sweet corn, because two reviewers remembered it. A pinch of sugar, since others described the filling as a little sweet. What went wrong: Potato was a clear improvement: it softened into the sauce exactly as reviewers describe. Corn made it taste like a different pie to me. And butter still pooled, because I was baking pies straight after shaping them. Verdict: Potato stays, corn becomes optional. The pooling butter is now my main enemy. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 6/10. ## Attempt 7: Chill, then a hot tray (January 2024) What changed: Read about a hotel pastry chef chilling shaped butter puff pies before baking. Thirty minutes in the fridge after crimping, a heavy tray preheated in the oven, 210 C for 15 minutes then 190 C. What went wrong: Very little. One pie burst at the seam because I overfilled it. Portions fixed at about 130 g after that. Verdict: The edge crackled and then went soft and buttery. I made an involuntary noise in my own kitchen. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 8/10. ## Attempt 8: Poach, do not fry (March 2025) What changed: Poached the chicken thigh gently instead of pan-frying it, and used the poaching liquid as half the liquid in the bechamel. What went wrong: Nothing went wrong, which makes it harder to know what is still missing. The filling is richer and the chicken is closer to the "fibres just separating" texture reviewers describe. Something in the depth of the sauce is still not there. Verdict: This is the flagship recipe as it stands. Still an 8. The last two points may be memory, not cooking. Closeness to memory, the narrator's opinion: 8/10. --- # Oven Marvel FAQ URL: https://ovenmarvel.com/faq/ **What was Oven Marvel?** Oven Marvel was a small takeaway bakery on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore. It sold only chicken pies, curry puffs and muffins, and was known above all for a flat, round chicken pie made with all-butter puff pastry baked in the shop. It closed in early 2022. **Where was Oven Marvel located?** On the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189652. Early listings give unit #01-51 and later ones #01-55. The nearest MRT station listed was Bencoolen. See Sunshine Plaza and Bencoolen. **Did Oven Marvel have other outlets?** No evidence of any. Every review, listing and news report places it at one shop in Sunshine Plaza. No branch, kiosk or franchise appears in any source. **When did Oven Marvel open?** Nobody has published an opening date. The earliest dated evidence is a blog post of 11 January 2009, when the shop was still called Delicious Muffins. One 2022 article says it had been in Bencoolen since the early millennium, without giving a source. So: by 2009 at the latest. **Was Oven Marvel formerly called Delicious Muffins?** Yes. In January 2009 the shop traded as Delicious Muffins. By August 2013 it was Oven Marvel. Leslie Tay explained the rename: selling chicken pies and curry puffs under the name Delicious Muffins was a bit funny. The exact date of the change is unknown. **Who owned Oven Marvel?** The chef-owner named in the sources is Johnny Ngiam, a career pastry chef whose last hotel job was as pastry chef at a Hilton before he opened his own small bakery at Sunshine Plaza. Other helpers are mentioned by reviewers but never reliably named. **What were Oven Marvel's opening hours?** They changed over the years. Around 2009 to 2015 reviewers list roughly 11.30am to 8pm, and the shop closed on the 8th, 18th and 28th of each month. In April 2020 it opened from about midday until 8pm. Pies often sold out well before closing. None of this applies now: the shop closed in early 2022. **Did Oven Marvel take cards?** Reviewers repeatedly describe it as cash only. In 2014 regulars pre-ordered in person, and by 2022 phone orders were so heavy that walk-in customers could leave with nothing. **What was the Oven Marvel chicken pie like?** Flat, round and single-serve, with house-made all-butter puff pastry top and bottom: crisp on top, soft and slightly chewy where it soaked up the sauce. The filling was chicken thigh, peas, onion, carrot and soft potato in a medium-thick, peppery homemade bechamel. Read what the chicken pie tasted like. **Was the Oven Marvel pie made with puff pastry or shortcrust?** Puff pastry, made in the shop with butter. Reviewers contrast it with the shortcrust British-style pies most people expect. See why puff pastry and not shortcrust. **Did the Oven Marvel chicken pie have egg in it?** No source mentions egg in it. Egg is a feature of some other old-school Singapore pies, not this one. **Was there corn in the Oven Marvel chicken pie?** Some people remember corn. Two Burpple reviewers mention sweet corn, in 2014 and 2017, while the most detailed accounts, by Leslie Tay and Miss Tam Chiak, do not. The honest answer is maybe, or perhaps sometimes. **Why did the Oven Marvel pie taste so peppery?** Nearly every reviewer calls the filling peppery, and one specifically says white peppery. White pepper gives a warm heat that builds at the back of the throat and suits a pale cream sauce. See the guide to white pepper. **How much was an Oven Marvel chicken pie?** Reviewers reported about S$2.80 around 2009, S$3.50 in 2013, S$3.80 from 2014 to 2017 (one 2014 review says S$4.30) and S$4.00 from 2018 to 2020. These are reported prices, not an official list. See the price of a pie. **What was the Oven Marvel curry puff like?** It used the same butter puff pastry as the pie, around waxy potato that was boiled in its skin, peeled, diced and fried in curry powder the chef ground himself, with diced chicken. There was no egg. It cost about S$2 around 2009 and S$2.80 from 2014. **What muffins did Oven Marvel sell?** Reviewers between 2018 and 2020 name Banana Walnut, Apple Raisin, Orange Peel, Choco'Wanna and Double Chocolate Chip, at roughly S$2.20 to S$2.80. The double chocolate chip was a recurring favourite. **Is Oven Marvel still open?** No. Oven Marvel closed permanently in early 2022, and nothing suggests it has reopened anywhere. **When did Oven Marvel close?** In early 2022. The closure was reported on 17 March 2022. The exact last trading day is not recorded in any source we found. **Why did Oven Marvel close?** Reportedly because the owners retired due to old age. That reason comes second-hand, from netizens in a Facebook group who phoned the shop, as reported by Great Deals Singapore. The owners were not quoted. See what happened to Oven Marvel. **Why can't I find Oven Marvel on Google Maps?** Because the shop closed. Its listing was marked permanently closed after the closure was reported in March 2022. **Can I get the original Oven Marvel chicken pie recipe?** No. The shop never published its recipe, quantities or oven temperatures. This site offers home recreations built from reviewers' descriptions, clearly labelled as such, starting with the flagship butter-puff chicken pie. **How do I make Oven Marvel-style puff pastry at home?** Make an all-butter rough puff: equal weights of cold butter and flour, iced water, four letter folds with 30-minute chills, and a final chill after shaping. In Singapore, work early in the day or with aircon. Full method in the rough puff recipe. **Where can I buy a chicken pie like Oven Marvel's now?** No shop sells the same pie. For butter puff and a creamy filling, look at hotel coffee-house chicken pies. For other good chicken pies still baking in Singapore, with pastry style and price for each, see where to get a chicken pie like that today. **Was Oven Marvel connected to Don Pie?** No evidence connects them. Oven Marvel was Chef Johnny Ngiam's shop at Sunshine Plaza; Don Pie was founded by Chef Don Lim in the CBD, and its pies are baked today under the DonChef name. Their pies differ, and Miss Tam Chiak's 2019 taste test lists them as separate competitors. They are separate businesses. **Is ovenmarvel.com the official Oven Marvel website?** No. It is a fan tribute, not affiliated with or endorsed by Oven Marvel, Chef Johnny Ngiam or the former owners, and it does not sell their pies. How the site is written is explained on the about page. **Are the photos on this site real photos of Oven Marvel?** No. Every image on this site is an illustration. None shows the real shop, the chef, Sunshine Plaza or a real Oven Marvel pie. The original blog posts on the sources page have real photographs from the time.