Oven Marvelremembered

labelled: not the real recipe

The recreation kitchen

Oven Marvel never published a recipe. So I have spent the years since it closed baking my way back towards it, one notebook page at a time. These are the results.

Written by the home baker behind ovenmarvel.comLast updated: October 2026

A flat puff pastry chicken pie torn open to show creamy filling with chicken, peas and carrot

Quick answer

These are seven home recipes that try to recreate what Oven Marvel sold: the flat butter-puff chicken pie, its rough puff pastry, its peppery chicken bechamel filling, a quicker version with bought puff, the curry puff and two muffins. None is the shop's recipe, which was never published. Each is built from reviewers' descriptions.

  1. A flat, round, golden all-butter puff pastry chicken pie on a crumpled brown paper bagSavoury pieThe flagship: a flat butter-puff chicken pie in the Oven Marvel styleMakes 6 pies. 7 hr start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 8/10.
  2. The cut edge of baked all-butter rough puff pastry with many thin, separated golden layersPastryRough puff pastry for a tropical kitchenMakes 6 pies. 2 hr 45 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 8/10.
  3. A thick white bechamel being stirred in a saucepan beside a small bowl of ground white pepperPie fillingPeppery chicken thigh bechamel fillingMakes 6 pies. 3 hr 5 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 8/10.
  4. Circles cut from a sheet of puff pastry on a home kitchen counter beside a bowl of chicken filling and a notebookSavoury pieThe weeknight version, with good bought all-butter puffMakes 4 pies. 1 hr 50 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 6/10.
  5. A baked puff pastry curry puff broken in half on brown paper, showing curried potato fillingSavoury pastryCurry puffs in butter puff pastryMakes 12 puffs. 4 hr 30 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 7/10.
  6. A banana walnut muffin with a crisp, nut-studded top beside two chocolate muffins on a cooling rackMuffinBanana walnut muffins in the spirit of the shopMakes 12 muffins. 55 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 7/10.
  7. Two dark double chocolate chip muffins with cracked, chip-studded tops on a cooling rackMuffinDouble chocolate chip muffins, the regulars' favouriteMakes 12 muffins. 50 min start to finish. Closeness to memory, my opinion: 7/10.

Are these the original Oven Marvel recipes?

No, and nothing on this site will ever claim otherwise. Oven Marvel's chef, Johnny Ngiam, made everything in the shop by hand, including the puff pastry, and the shop never published its methods. What does exist is a good written record of what the pie was like: reviewers from 2009 to 2020 described flat, all-butter puff pastry, chicken thigh cooked until just tender, a homemade peppery bechamel, peas, onion, carrot and soft potato, and no egg. Those descriptions, collected on what the chicken pie tasted like, are the brief I bake to.

The quantities, temperatures and timings are mine, refined over eight logged attempts. Where a recipe uses a technique from a published source, such as chilling shaped pies before baking or an equal-weight rough puff, the recipe page cites it.

How should I plan a bake?

Puff pastry rewards planning more than skill. In a Singapore kitchen, almost all the time is fridge time. Here is how I spread the flagship pie over a day and a half:

A relaxed two-day plan for six flat pies
WhenTaskHands-on
Day 1, eveningMake the filling; chill overnight. Put the flour in the freezer.About 45 min
Day 2, 7amMix the rough puff and give it four folds with restsAbout 30 min across 2 hours
Day 2, late morningRoll, cut, fill and seal; chill the shaped piesAbout 30 min
Day 2, lunchBake, rest 10 minutes, eatA few minutes

What makes these recipes safe and reliable?

Every recipe gives weights in grams and oven temperatures in Celsius, with a fan-oven figure where it matters. Chicken is cooked to at least 75 C before it goes into any pastry, fillings are cooled fast in shallow trays and refrigerated, and reheating instructions always end with a centre temperature of 75 C. A probe thermometer is the single most useful thing you can buy for this project.

Each recipe page has tools to make cooking easier: a servings scaler that recalculates the grams, tick-boxes for ingredients and steps that your browser remembers, countdown timers on the timed steps, and a large-type cook mode that keeps your screen awake on phones that allow it.

Questions about the recipes

Is there an official Oven Marvel chicken pie recipe?

No. Oven Marvel never published a recipe, quantities or oven temperatures, and no cookbook or interview has revealed one. Every recipe here is a home recreation, labelled as such.

Which recipe should I start with?

If you have a day, the flagship pie, which includes the pastry and filling. If you have an evening, the weeknight version with bought all-butter puff.

Do I need special equipment?

A rolling pin, a ruler, a baking tray, two round cutters or bowls of about 12 and 13 cm, and, most usefully, a probe thermometer to check that chicken and reheated pies reach 75 C.

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