Salahuddin Bakery - Wood-Fired Breads and Curry Puffs In Johor Bahru Since 1937

Salahuddin Bakery has been baking in Johor Bahru since 1937, and it still does so the way it started: in a room-sized brick oven fired with wood. The bakery was founded by Shariff Mohamed Mahku, a baker who arrived from New Delhi in 1925 and sold sugee biscuits from a small stall before opening his own shop on Jalan Dhoby. Today, the business is run by the fourth generation of the same family, and it is one of only two bakeries in Johor Bahru still using a traditional giant wood-fired oven — the other being Hiap Joo. In December 2024, after some 87 years in the old town, the bakery moved from Jalan Dhoby to Bandar Baru Uda, bringing its halal Indian-Muslim baking tradition with it. Around 20 types of traditional breads, pastries and cakes come out of the oven daily, and some of them are hard to find anywhere else. Here is what to look out for on the trays.

Bengali Curry Puffs

The bakery's best-known item is its Bengali curry puff, also called karipap — a large, triangular puff with a flaky crust, baked rather than deep-fried. Fillings include curried potato (RM2), with chicken, mutton, and sardine versions at RM2.50 each. These oven-baked Indian curry puffs were once sold across Malaysia and Singapore by peddlers carrying wooden boxes on bicycles, and they have since become rare in both countries. Salahuddin remains one of the few places still making them daily, generously filled and sold straight from the oven.

Wood-Fired Bread

The bakery bakes its loaves overnight in a brick oven using a recipe passed down from the founder. The wood fire gives each loaf a soft, fluffy crumb and a light smoky fragrance that sets it apart from commercially baked bread. Regulars toast it for roti bakar with kaya, and the bakery offers a slicing service on request. The loaves are among the first items to go each morning, so an early visit is the safest way to secure one.

Coconut Buns

Coconut buns are one of the bakery's longest-running and most popular items, baked in the same wood-fired oven as the breads. Together with the karipaps and loaves, they are typically sold out by around midday — which says plenty about their standing among regulars. Kaya and red bean versions also appear on the trays alongside the plain buns.

Cream Rolls

The cream roll is an old-school pastry that has followed the bakery from Jalan Dhoby to its new home: a baked pastry horn filled with cream, light in texture and made fresh daily. It is a style of confection that has largely disappeared from modern bakeries, and patrons continue to single it out among the daily spread.

Sugee Biscuits

The sugee biscuit is where Salahuddin's story began. Before the shop opened in 1937, founder Shariff Mohamed Mahku sold these semolina biscuits from a small stall, offering a free cup of tea to anyone who bought them. Nearly nine decades later, the crunchy suji cookies are still made in-house — a direct link to the bakery's earliest days.

Cupcake

The bakery's plain-looking cupcakes have a quiet following of their own. Salahuddin once took bulk orders of 200 to 300 at a time; the family now focuses on direct sales at the shop, baked fresh in the wood-fired oven daily like everything else on the trays.

Butter Cake

The butter cake is a proper old-school bake: dense, golden, and rich with the scent of caramelised butter, sold at RM6. Made to the same traditional methods the bakery has used since before the war, it is one of the most affordable heritage bakes of its kind in the city.

Banana Cake

Rounding out the sweet trays is the banana cake, a traditional item baked in the wood-fired oven alongside the marble cake and other old-style confections. Like the rest of the lineup, it is baked fresh daily and displayed openly where customers pick and choose — the same way the bakery has sold its goods since 1937.

Salahuddin Bakery is a working piece of Johor Bahru's baking history: a fourth-generation family business, a wood-fired brick oven, and a lineup of breads and pastries that few kitchens still make. With most items priced between RM2 and RM6 and the trays emptying by midday, an early-morning visit to Bandar Baru Uda rewards anyone who wants to taste baking as it was done nearly 90 years ago.

Salahuddin Bakery
15, Jalan Jagong 1, Bandar Baru Uda, 81200 Johor Bahru
Opening Hours: Sat–Thu 7:00am–6:00pm, Closed Friday
Tel: +60 12-766 8380