Baking is hard work even for most of us. And for Kelvin Leong, baking comes with a whole new set of challenges. A stroke in 2012 rendered his left arm paralysed. Yet, he dove into baking as a serious hobby in 2016 after a friend gifted him an electric mixer for his birthday. “That was my ‘eureka!’ moment,” shares the 42-year-old property agent. He set up his home-based biz OhBaker about a month ago — mostly out of passion, and also to encourage fellow stroke survivors to overcome their challenges, he says.

The bachelor does everything himself — from baking to deliveries — and sells an assortment of lava blackout brownies and Japanese-style cheesecake.

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Kelvin settled on the name OhBaker — which stands for “One-Handed Baker” — without too much thought. “It’s short, sweet and accurate, right?” he explains with a smile. “I want the concept of OhBaker to share my story, so hopefully other stroke survivors will be able to overcome their physical constraints.”

From June to August, Kelvin juggled between his full-time real estate job and doing R&D for OhBaker from his Bukit Panjang flat. “I was running into many failures with my brownies at first, and that took me a long time to nail,” he says. “I was becoming frustrated and obsessed — I even faced several nights of insomnia over them!”

Kelvin finally got over that hurdle, and moved on to launch OhBaker, accepting his first batch of orders on 16th October. “In my first week, I sent out about 30 orders, mostly to friends and family. From there, the word slowly spread.” Now, Kelvin has ramped up production from just weekends to sending out orders daily, with an average of six to eight orders a day.

“It happened on 11th February 2012,” says Kelvin without hesitation. “I consider this date my second ‘birthday’.” That day, Kelvin was out meeting a client. He recalled waking up that morning feeling dizzy and light-headed, but decided against calling in sick.

Halfway through the appointment, his colleague, Joanna, suddenly noticed that the left side of his face was starting to droop. “She started pinching my left arm, and I couldn’t feel a thing. That’s when I realised that something was very wrong.” Coincidentally, his client’s wife — who was a nurse — was also at the appointment, and immediately called for medical help.

“Everything from that point on happened in a rush. But somehow, I remember every single detail clearly — from when I was placed in the ambulance, to watching the hospital lights flash by overhead as I was being wheeled through the ER.”

At the hospital, Kelvin was diagnosed with a severe hemorrhage (caused by hypertension) on the right side of his brain. A right-side stroke affects the left side of the body, and Kelvin woke up with half his body paralysed. He was wheelchair-bound at the beginning, and it took a full 15 months before he became fully independent again. Though Kelvin regained the use of his legs (barring a slight limp on his left leg), he never recovered the use of his left arm and hand.

“The transition from being able-bodied to being a stroke survivor is not easy at all,” he adds. “I had to learn everything from scratch again. It took me a while to regain the confidence to do things like walk and drive my own again, though I think it took my family longer to feel confident that I could be independent again.” Kelvin describes how he had to re-learn how to drive with a special steering wheel knob, and was assessed by both an occupational therapist and driving instructor before being declared road-worthy.

Despite the tragedy, he does his best to find something positive. “Luckily for me, I’m right-side dominant. The left-side of the brain is also the side that controls speech, so my speech was hardly affected,” says Kelvin. He still speaks fluidly now, with barely a stutter.

Years later, Kelvin went back to work as a property agent. While he owned an oven, he stuck to making only savoury pies using pre-made pastry. “I toyed with the idea of baking desserts, but couldn't find the motivation to attempt it back then — and with only one hand to boot.”

It all changed in 2016 when his pal and colleague Joanna (pictured, who was with him the fateful day he got a stroke), surprised him at his house with a birthday gift — an electric stand mixer. “She literally just turned up and told me: “Now you have no more excuse not to bake!” They made cinnamon rolls on the spot.

Prior to this, another major turning point came in 2013 when Kelvin saw motivational speaker and evangelist Nick Vujicic — who was born without arms or legs — at a church event that his close friend brought him to. “He was doing all kinds of things like skydiving and travelling the world — things that most ordinary people don’t even do.”

“Before this, when I was still wheelchair-bound or walking with my quad stick, I would always feel uncomfortable and frustrated when people stared at me.” He recalled a shift in his mindset after that day. “From then on, whenever I noticed people looking at me, I stopped feeling upset. I just gave them a smile. And then, strangers started smiling back. Some even gave me words of encouragement.”

From that day on, Kelvin immersed himself in his newfound hobby, finding every opportunity to try a new recipe. “It does take me a lot longer to bake. Unlike able-bodied people who can use both their hands, I have to get creative with figuring out how to solve small problems, he says.

For example, he'd use the lid of his air-fryer to hold his sieves in place while he strains the batter with his working arm — a makeshift stand of sorts. “Over the years, I’ve learned to make a lot of simple adaptations to daily living. Sure, things are slower, but I find that I’m more patient and thankful that I’m even able to be doing them despite everything that has happened .

“During the circuit breaker, my baking frequency went up by a lot — similar to all those other ‘homemade’ master chefs and bakers,” laughs Kelvin. “I found stirring and mixing the batter extremely calming. It felt peaceful.”

Kelvin recalls the frustrating shortage of cream cheese during that time (don’t we all), and relates how he immediately jumped at his friend’s offer to get him a block. “And that’s how I ended up with a 2kg block of cream cheese on my hands.” In the hopes of putting the block to good use, Kelvin started experimenting with different recipes, before eventually stumbling upon the recipe that would evolve into the cheesecake he sells today.

He baked a few batches for his family to try, and they all loved it. In July, his cousin encouraged him to put some thought into setting up a home-based business. The rest is history. “There’s something incredibly therapeutic and satisfying about baking. Even better, when I get to see my friends and family enjoy the goods I make for them.”

“I started Ohbaker purely out of passion. And so far, I’ve learnt that running a biz is very different from simply exploring a passion,” says Kelvin. Besides the baking itself, Kelvin does his own supply runs and food photography, the latter which he picked up from an unexpected platform — TikTok. “I’m an uncle who loves to scroll through TikTok,” he says with a laugh, adding how he managed to find informative 30-second photography tutorials on the popular video-sharing social network. Looks like he’s more hip than us.

At the moment, Kelvin is also doing the deliveries himself, though he hopes to find a delivery partner so that he can offload some deliveries and expand his baking capacity. “Right now, deliveries are my limiting factor. Volume isn’t an issue — my current home kitchen is still good, and if I set aside less time for deliveries, I can bake more for sure.”

Kelvin’s day now starts at 7am, with baking. He’s usually finished with orders by 11am, and after the bakes have been packed, he makes his delivery runs in the afternoon.

He credits the support of his work team — he’s still a property agent and has been with his team for about 10 years — in enabling him to ramp up production. “I initially planned to accumulate orders during the week and then only bake on weekends, but since my job is flexible and my team so supportive, I’ve decided to bake and deliver daily now.”

Between his cheesecake and lava brownies, Kelvin pegs the brownies as the more challenging product to nail by far. “I got the cheesecake settled by the second or third attempt. But these brownies took ages.”

Kelvin scrolls through his phone, sharing photos of his first-attempt failures. “This was my first batch of lava Kurokuro Brownies (see above). I baked them thinking that I had used more than enough filling — but when I cut them…” he trails off with a chuckle.

He estimates that he had made over 350 failed brownies before finally nailing the perfect batch about a month ago. “I remember the day when I finally got the perfect ”lava” effect I was trying to create — my dad was delighted for me, but he didn’t want to try them because he was scarred from eating so many brownies over the weeks! I’m so glad I also don’t have to eat so many failed brownies now,” jokes Kelvin.

For now, Kelvin intends to focus on keeping his menu streamlined. The only bakes available are his Mr Cheesecake and Kurokuro Brownies. “I want to focus on quality rather than aim to ramp up [the menu] too fast.

So why brownies and cheesecakes, since they’re already so common with home bakers? “I wanted to produce bakes that are lighter, something that people can enjoy more frequently. My cousin had praised my first ever batch of triple chocolate brownies, and he ended up encouraging me to sell my bakes as well.”

He’s excited about the future of his small biz. “I have many ideas for OhBaker, but there’s only so much I can do as a one-man show. I intend to keep it this way for the time being, but I believe I will be able to slowly expand my menu. Right now, being busy is good. You gotta make hay while the sun shines.”

Kelvin uses French butter and chocolate like Valrhona for his bakes. The Mr. Cheesecake was inspired by a recipe from Koji Tamura (it even shares the same moniker). The Tokyo-based fine-dining chef reportedly sold Tokyo’s “most elusive cheesecake”, and had published the recipe for his famous Mr Cheesecake online this April, in the midst of the global pandemic. Kelvin describes it as “like a Basque burnt cheesecake, but much more delicate.”

Made from a mix of cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, yogurt and white chocolate, it’s lightly burnished surface contrasts with its pale interior flecked with specks of vanilla beans.

There appears to be two slightly different textures in the cheesecake: a firmer top layer, and a more cloud-like centre. The first bite is lusciously creamy yet light, melting away with a mild but pleasant cheesiness. A touch of lemon adds a subtle tang that cuts the creaminess.

There’s also an obscure special ingredient in this: Tonka beans. The South American beans are often used in baking for their complex scent, which is described as a mix of almond, cherry, vanilla and warm spice. “They are used somewhat like nutmeg — very sparingly, ust to enhance the taste of the vanilla beans,” says Kelvin. We suppose this does taste more vanilla-y than most cheesecakes we’ve had. Quite nice if you’re looking for something between a lighter Japanese souffle cheesecake and a Basque burnt cheesecake.

For his Kurokuro Brownies (kuro means black in Japanese), Kelvin dreamt up almost all the names himself. Plus points for creativity. The molten centre consists of an intense black cocoa brownie base itself (similar to a choc lava cake), as well as six different fillings — cookie butter, almond ganache with almond slivers, bittersweet 70% guanaja chocolate, raspberry ganache-dark chocolate, Nutella, and Ovomaltine spread. Kelvin says an Earl Grey ganache lava brownie is in the works, along with other tea-based flavors. Stay tuned.

Of the six options, we like Bohemian Raspberry best. It hides a semi-liquid core of silky, deep red, tangy ganache concocted with raspberry pastilles, cream, white chocolate, salt, as well as 70% dark chocolate. It blends perfectly with the bittersweet dark chocolate brownie for a balanced and complex bite.

Our second-fave is the All Biscoff Of You, for it’s crunchy core of addictive cookie butter, followed by the I’m Knot Ovo You for it’s yummy maltiness. Microwave them for 15 to 30 seconds to get that dramatic oozy lava effect.

The base for the blackout brownies using Barry Callebaut black cocoa powder or 70% dark guanaja Valrhona couverture chocolate is not very sweet (unlike the ones we’ve tried from the popular Backyard Bakers), and melts in the mouth like the cheesecake. We didn't feel heaty or jelak after polishing off a whole piece.

The brownies — rich and fudgy but not too sweet, with an array of delightful molten centres — are better than most standard home-baked versions and less cloying than many cafe offerings. We’d happily order a box again.

Order via Instagram here: @ohbaker.sg. Orders can also be placed via an order form or Whatsapp. $8 for islandwide delivery (free delivery above $80), or free self-pick up at Bukit Panjang.

Photos: Kelvin Leong/ Alicia Teng

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