Food bloggers say they will continue plying their wares
Licensed or not, customers will continue buying treats like cupcakes, pineapple tarts or fancy macaroons from "casual" home bakeries, they say.
At the same time, food bloggers selling their wares say they will continue their trade - because most of their customers are their friends.
Concern over hygiene standards kept by food bloggers hawking their wares had arisen, following last month's PrimaDeli food poisoning incident.
One blogger, editorial consultant Cheryl Chia, said that she knew about the National Environment Agency regulations and that "food poisoning can kill, it's scary".
"That's why I am now only baking for family and friends," she said.
The 23-year-old behind She Bakes & She Cooks said that she first started selling because readers wrote in, asking her to sell her baked goods to them.
Basic food hygiene is always observed, said Mr Samuel Chan, 22, of the blog Sam's Cakes and Bakes.
However, getting a licence is too costly, mainly because of the need for a commercial space, he said.
Under the law, homes cannot be used to cook food to be sold to the public.
First-time offenders could be fined up to $1,000.
"While we can't use our home kitchen, I feel that a home kitchen is clean enough and adequate
when it comes to small-scale production," Mr Chan, a food technology student at a local polytechnic, said.
Undergraduate Julius Chen, 22, who runs the website Julius Truffles, suggested licensing home premises for small-scale baking.
"There can also be courses for home bakers. Perhaps awareness and education campaigns too, when it comes to concerns like food safety," he said.
In any case, many home bakeries come recommended by friends and should be reliable, said consumers whom my paper interviewed.
Marketing manager Ng Aik Kiat, 32, says he has been buying pineapple tarts and love letters from his neighbours for many years because he found the quality of their baked treats to be high.
"After all these years, there is a certain level of trust and confidence," he said.
"They might not be licensed, but it's almost like my own relatives making (these cookies) for me."
Account executive Jaslin Poh, 28, said she would still take this "calculated risk".
"As long as the website doesn't have a bad record, I will still go ahead," she said.
