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| Du Du Cooked Food 嘟嘟熟食 | 22A Havelock Rd, Havelock Road Food Centre, stall #01-10, Singapore 161022 🚄 10 minute walk from Havelock station ⏰ 8am - 1pm (Sunday off) |
One of the things I like to let visitors from overseas try in Singapore is tu tu kueh 嘟嘟粿 (kueh tu tu in Malay).
I haven't found this in Malaysia nor in Indonesia yet (but haven't been to Indonesia much recently).
In Singapore, I like to get mine from Havelock Road hawker centre.
Tu tu kueh used to be more common during my childhood. There were tu tu kueh carts at pasar malam (night market) and wayang (traveling stage theatre).
Amazingly, when you go to the Havelock Road hawker stall today, you will see the same design steaming device still in use 👍
Made fresh on the spot with rice flour and grated coconut with caramelised sugar (jaggery). There's also crushed peanut and sugar option. Cooked by steaming.
Five pieces for S$3 in 2025. Each tu tu kueh on a sweet fragrant square of pandan leaf.
Very pleasant comforting rice taste and aroma from the snowy white bitesize cake or tartlet. (The tu tu kueh is tender but firmer and denser than its putu piring cousin.)
The grated coconut was moist squeaky soft chewy with coconut and sugar sweetness. (Tu tu kueh use caramelised cane sugar whereas putu piring use gula Melaka, coconut palm sugar).
Yeah... addictive layers of sweetness that is hard to resist 🤭 Each piece is also loaded with nostalgia, which in my humour opinion makes food tastes better.
Precious record by Happy Cat of Du Du Cooked Food. They still pound their rice from scratch with an over 70 year old contraption and cook their own jaggery (caramelised sugar).
Stall name: Du Du Cooked Food 嘟嘟熟食
Address: 22A Havelock Rd, Havelock Road Food Centre, stall #01-10, Singapore 161022
Nearest MRT: 10 minute walk from Havelock station
Hours: 8am - 1pm (Sunday off)
Written by Tony Boey on 25 May 2025
Kueh Tu Tu 嘟嘟糕 is a unique little pillowy tender-firm steamed rice cake filled with gently crunchy crushed toasted peanut or moist grated coconut flesh sweetened with cane sugar. The sweet street snack was invented here and found only in Singapore.
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| Image credit: National Archives of Singapore |
As a child, I watched with delight how the hawker deftly filled the little shallow chrysanthemum shaped cup with powdery milled rice flour, then some grated coconut or crushed peanut, then covered it with more rice flour and finally pulled a small sheet of wet white cloth over it like some magic show.
He next inverted the small cup, gently laid the little rice cake in a shiny steel steaming pot and then covered it. Moments later, steam huffed and puffed inside the pot. When uncle lifted the cover, escaping sweet smelling steam made a muffled whistling hissing sound. Someone decided decades ago that that sounded like "tu tu" (got meh? 🤔 ) and so "Tu Tu Kueh" 嘟嘟粿 was born.
Tan Bee Hwa (also spelt Tan Bee Hua) owner of Tan's Tu Tu Coconut Cake said Tu Tu Kueh was created by her father who came from Hui'an county in Quanzhou of China's Fujian province 福建惠安.
Tan Bee Hua said that her father Tan Eng Huat (alias Tan Yong Fa) came from China in 1932.
At first, Tan Eng Huat sold 泉州 style 松糕 which were steamed rice cakes made with milled rice flour and sugar. He invented Tu Tu Kueh by shrinking the 松糕 and filling the plain rice cakes with grated coconut flesh and cane sugar. He also created another version filled with crushed peanuts.
Tan Bee Hua said her father gave his creation the name Tu Tu Kueh because the charcoal fired steamer had a pressure relief valve that made a "tu tu" sound during cooking (like a steam train whistle). It's a catchy name that made everyone want to try this new snack 😄
Tan Bee Hwa's brother Tan Cheong Chuan also started a Tu Tu Kueh stall when he arrived in Singapore from China at age 13. She took over his stall in 2004 after her brother Tan Cheong Chuan passed on. Tan Cheong Chuan's wife Ho Cheng Kim now runs the Tan's Tu Tu Coconut Cake outlet at Havelock Road Food Centre.
In a separate account by owner of Lau Tan TuTu Kueh, Tan Gek Eng shared that her father Tan Hay Swee who also came to Singapore from China created the sweet snack in 1949.
Once fairly common in a more laid back Singapore, the future of Tu Tu Kueh is now uncertain. The handmade snack is not easily scalable, so margins are relatively low, making it harder to sustain in our high pace, high cost environment.
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| Putu piring at Haig Road Hawker Centre Singapore |
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| Putu piring in Johor Bahru with turmeric powder |
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👆 Get to know Singapore through its food. Image credit: Wikipedia
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Mr Ho Tu Tu is absolutely the bomb—his stall at Bendemeer, near the prawn mee spot you recently blogged about.
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