All of us were given a list on WhatsApp for the Jurong food trail and when i saw Lee's Confectionery; i assumed it's some old-school bakery like Balmoral Bakery at Sunset Way.
To be honest, i was dumbfounded when i stepped into the confectionery that looked nothing like the usually cramped and messy neighbourhood bakeries filled with breads, buns, cakes and pastries!
In the minimalist style popular for people who are moving into their new homes, Lee's Confectionery would fall more into the category of cafes although it's technically nothing wrong with the use of confectionery; which is define simply as "a shop that sells sweets and chocolates."
Another shocker was the variety of products offered for sale. What you see above would be the entire offering for the day; i counted twice; seven in total and i can even list them down for you.
Puck, Tart, Kuri, Ahpo, Jiao, Madu, Tree. Am i complaining about limited variety? I am not as our group has six persons and it made total sense for us to try everything; albeit to be shared among us.
You don't see all the products on display as each one would be painstakingly constructed and plated. On one hand, you can sit at the counter and check out the process; on the other hand, it can take quite a while! Thank god we were the only customers at that time.
Even the drinks were served so nicely with a small piece of chocolate cake and a cinnamon biscuit. They were a bit soft and could have benefited from a short toasting in the oven.
Ahpo - caramelised granny smith apple sandwiched between a puff pastry base and a vanilla cream cheese top; the difficulty to eating this was how badly we would need to destroy in order to get it into our mouth.
The job had to be done savagely anyway; i enjoyed the crunchiness of the base, the coldness of the cream cheese and the sweet flavour of apple that only had that slight tinge of sourness.
Jiao - banana sponge cake with salted caramel and banana compote; this was more cake-like with layers of texture and tastes. Interestingly, the cake was covered in a icing-sugar coating that cracked upon touch and here's a pool of mashed bananas (the compote) at the bottom.
Kuri - milk chocolate mousse with chestnut cream and chunks and chestnut mochi. I don't know why but i recently had a strong craving for Chinese chestnut; i sure hope this would satisfy.
I absolutely loved this, especially with the additional chunks of chestnut. The mochi didn't stick to the teeth and i was amazed by its delectable taste as most mochi don't appeal to me.
Tart - lime cream, lime almond cake and almond tart shell. I don't particularly like lime in cakes / tarts but i admit the sourish burst with a sweet aftertaste complemented perfected with the crunch of the shell.
Madu - honey caramel, horlicks mascarpone cream and cornflakes honey joys; the plating using a honeycomb design and the use of aforementioned ingredients would have attracted kids.
For someone with a sweet tooth (even though i have been trying to cut it); this shared the same position as Kuri as my favourite! Loving the crunch of cornflakes hidden in the middle of the horlick cream!
Puck - dark chocolate mousse, flourless chocolate sponge and salted reconstructed tart base; the list of ingredients seemed to say a lot but for the untrained pâtissier / someone with simpler taste buds, it's not as complicated.
I, someone with simpler taste buds, would have put it as a super good chocolate cake that's not cloyingly rich and not mixed in with other ingredients like nuts / fruits to differentiate it from other competitors.
Tree - don't you just love the directness of the name given to this; not christmas tree but just tree. Easily the most eye-catching item at the glass counter, this was essentially matcha sponge cake, matcha lime cream and matcha white chocolate ganache.
It's hard to cut the tree and we each chose a layer of sponge cake; it's not until we got to the bottom that we realized more "treasures". Whatever the case, friends who know would be aware there are a few things that i like in their original form; durians, coffee and lastly, green tea. Hence, despite it's attractiveness, the Tree is the one that got the least affection from me.
Overall, i must say our group (a few of them were extremely picky when it comes to food) had a great time savouring the quality artisanal cakes / pastries / tarts but felt that its location would eventually result in its closure. The price point is high for a neighbourhood and without venturing into full-sized cakes; it might be a bit hard to survive in the high-rent, pricey-ingredient, manpower-intensive food industry.
343 Jurong East Street 31,
As above for the drink menu.
For the cakes / pastries / tarts, it's priced S$8.00 apiece across board.
