By Gabriel Ho (24S02A) and Cheah Zong Heng (24S06P)
A Pastry Chef. A Chef Instructor. A Food Researcher. Oh, and an Artiste too. Ms Yeo Min (Batch of 2014) has a long list of unconventional career roles to her name.
Despite only switching careers relatively recently in 2020, she has already chalked up an impressive string of achievements. She beat 12 other competitors to earn a place in the Finals of the Channel 8 baking competition “Crème De La Crème” in 2021. She also came in second at the World Gourmet Summit Apprentice Chef Competition 2021 with her fusion dish of fried mooncake presented as a Chinese painting. Having published a book entitled the “Chinese Pastry School”, she now double-hats as a Chef Instructor at the ToTT Store and as a Pastry Chef at Pastories.
Ms Yeo kindly took time off her busy schedule to treat these writers to a half-hour crash course in simple pastry-making. Inside her homely kitchen, her dexterous hands expertly moulded the dough into delicate shapes of flowers. She made quick work of the dough, evidently guided by years of practice.
However, as amateurs, these writers fumbled repeatedly when moulding the dough themselves. Struggling in the simple task of flattening the dough without any breakages or deformations, moulding the dough was even more challenging.
Ms Yeo teaching Gabriel how to mould dough
Career Beginnings
It might surprise you that Ms Yeo didn’t start out as a pastry chef. In fact, prior to her transition, she did a brief stint at the Ministry of Social and Family Development.
“I had jumped into the government scholarship thing because of peer pressure,” she admitted, pointing to the unspoken expectations of RI students to pursue prestigious career pathways.
However, when she started working, she realised that the role wasn’t what she had expected. The circumstances of Covid-19 pandemic also lent greater impetus to her career transition. “It was the time during the Covid wave of resignations,” she explained, “We realised that we may ‘die’ tomorrow so we started questioning what we were going to do with our lives.”
“So I decided to just jump.” Ms Yeo took a leap of faith, breaking her scholarship bond in order to make the career switch from civil service to pastry-making.
A mixture of interest and perceived career viability determined her new choice of career. Having started pastry-making in university, she continued to bake as a pastime even after graduation. She also set up an Instagram page entitled “Pastories by Yeo Min” to share her stories through her pastries.
Flower-shaped Chinese Pastry with red bean fillings
Even though she was confident of her transition, her decision to switch careers was met with much apprehension from her family. After all, she would be giving up a stable income and the prestige that comes from being a civil servant.
“I think it was hard for my family to accept me jumping from being a scholar to joining the F&B (Food & Beverage) sector.”
Hence, to gain their acceptance, she reframed her career transition.
“I told them, ‘I am going to pastry school to upskill’.”
Her initial runway also wasn’t the most smooth-sailing. It was a huge jump from Civil Service to the Food and Beverage industry. She faced many uncertainties as a freelancer with an unstable monthly income. At the same time, she studied Pastries and Baking as a student in a culinary school to obtain her diploma and work as a trainee at the Fullerton Hotel.
When asked about how these experiences have shaped her as a person, she replied, “I think it is very humbling to make such a career switch and step into a whole different industry. You start to see the behind-the-scenes of F&B… that’s something a lot of consumers don’t think about or know about.”
An example she raised was the struggle of small businesses like hers. Explaining that the Singaporean consumer base tends to be price-conscious, many people may prefer the lower prices from the factory outlets to a smaller-sized bakery like hers.
“It’s a different world,” she admitted. As a civil servant, she never had to worry about income so she could solely focus on social service. Now, even though she has the freedom to express her creativity through pastry-making, she also has generate her own income to earn a living.
Her Current Role(s)
“[Pastry-making] is a lot of work,” Ms Yeo acknowledged. Being a small home-based business, she usually bakes to-order to reduce food waste.
She also teaches pastry-making as a second source of income. ”A lot of people expect that [when] they come for one class, they can make a perfect pastry after 2 hours,” overlooking the need for practice in order to perfect the art of pastry-making.
“I have to always start by telling them, ‘No, you need to learn for a few years to get up to standard.’”
Her third role as a food researcher involved working on a book delving deeper into Chinese pastries. Entitled “Chinese Pastry School”, her book provides a comprehensive collection of recipes while enlightening its readers about the key techniques of Chinese pastry-making.
Her book is available in both the Hullett Memorial Library and the Shaw Foundation Library! (Source: Epigram Books)
In the book, she classified Chinese pastries into different categories from all-things-gluten to sugar-related pastries. Her book is all-encompassing, including some jellies (e.g. grass jellies) and puddings.
What’s her favourite kind of pastry? ”I like them all,” she insisted, even as we tried to get her to give us a straight answer.
In order to write the book, she pored over books sourced from China and Taiwan as she worked to translate and synthesise the information. Including a Chinese quote at the start of every chapter, she also appended the romanisation (hanyu pinyin) and English explanation for people struggling in Mandarin.
Other than pastries, she also makes music. Her most recent songs have been featured in MediaCorp’s Channel 8 drama series, such as the Truth Seekers (2016), Have a Little Faith (2017), Happy Prince (2020) and most recently in 2023, the Sky is Still Blue drama series.
Despite the many different roles she takes on, she doesn’t feel that they tire her out. While she devotes less time to leisure and her social life, she enjoys what she does, and that makes it all worth it.
Her Future Plans
Looking forward, she plans to author another book about Chinese pastries. “I really enjoyed the book-writing process. It’s like writing a university thesis, but more fun.”
“There’s still a whole world out there that I haven’t dived into,” elaborating on how she plans to include information from her post-pandemic travels to China and Taiwan.
“I am also looking out for more collaborations,” she adds, although she is unable to disclose more details at this current juncture.
She is also looking to grow her social media footprint. However, she is conscious about the quality of her content.
”I guess there is a struggle between whether I am [posting content] for the fame or to make a difference.”
I want to do things that make a difference.
(Source: Pastories Instagram Page)
She also hopes that she can encourage Singaporeans to try food from different cultures. ”Trying food from another culture is what makes us feel connected to [each other].”
Words of Advice
While peer and parental pressure may discourage some from pursuing their passion, Ms Yeo wants to remind her juniors to always remember to take time to explore their interests.
Keep your doors as open as you can. Don’t ever feel that any skills that you learnt are a waste of time because it all depends on how you use it.
For interested readers whose aspirations intersect with pastry-making, she advises them to take it slow.
“A lot of my younger students are quite harsh on themselves,” She pointed to the problem of unrealistic expectations of baking that social media perpetuate. “[Pastry making] is no different from learning an instrument or learning a sport. You need to put in the hours, hard work and the resources.”
At the end of our interview, Ms Yeo brought up the concept of horizontal growth: having skills in a little bit of everything rather than specialising in only one aspect. In many cases, she is indeed a Jill of all trades. Having worked in the Civil Service, pastry-making, the music industry and teaching, her wide array of interdisciplinary skills has served her well no matter what role she takes on.
Ms Yeo’s relentless pursuit of learning exemplifies what’s most important in the modern-day workforce: facing challenges without being daunted by failures. Indeed, it is never too late to change paths and chase your dreams. What’s most important is working hard to follow your passions, and having the confidence to make the most of the life that you have.
