WHILE online shopping hasn't taken off in a big way in Singapore, it looks like Singaporeans are very comfortable with ordering their cakes online. 'More than half of our orders are made online by our customers. They browse through our website and pick the designs they like, email us their order and that's it,' says Meilyn Choo-Josman, of Smiling Orchid, a cake shop that's been around since the early 80s.

Which is certainly good news to new bakers on the block like Paul and Shereleen Leong, who quit their jobs a year ago in the IT industry to bake gourmet cakes instead.

Or perhaps, being pretty IT-savvy themselves, they spotted the flow and decided to go with it with their online bakery. Their complete career switch is an event the Christian couple would attribute to God however, shares Mr Leong, who was formerly in marketing. His wife was a finance manager, but now the couple with two children bake and sell cakes from home.

'To be frank, my wife had never baked a cake before in her life!' reveals Mr Leong candidly, until she started experimenting and found that she had a knack for it.

After 'divine confirmation', www.7thmanna.com was born. And having been from an IT company, it's clear the couple's skills have been put to good use, because the website is super easy to navigate, with a very approachable-business format.

There's quite a variety of cakes to choose from: tiramisu, cheesecake, carrot cake, chocolate, brandied cherry, and some classics like strawberry and blueberry plus a mango cake. Prices for the tiramisu, one of 7th manna's signatures, start from $32 for a seven-inch cake, to $75 for a 10-inch cake.

The carrot cake is also another signature item, which, upon tasting, was found to be flavourful, not too sweet, with just the right moistness, and generously slathered with creamy cream cheese.

7th manna takes orders three days in advance, waives delivery charges for orders above $50, and will also customise cakes on request, although it doesn't do 3D cakes - yet. 'Our Noah's Ark is one of the more popular children's cakes, while super heroes like Spiderman are also favourites,' says Mr Leong.Some of the new cake flavours that were developed earlier in the year include a chocolate cake with fresh cream, due to repeated requests from customers.

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