Confiseur & Co at Mosman

I just had to get this off my chest. Its almost 2am on a Saturday night (or should I say Sunday morning) and I am dead tired and wanting to fall into bed. But what is keeping me up is the need to tell you about cakes. Cakes of course are my weakness, I love the smell of them, the taste of them and unveiling them from the box but most of all, I love the look of them. The best thing about birthdays is that they involve cake (sometimes more than one if you're lucky). This afternoon I ventured out to my neighbourhood Mosman shopping street Military Road, something I don't often do as I am not a Prue or Trude, and bought some pastries from a delectable patisserie that I had walked past for years but never ventured into.

Confiseur & Co has a sunflower hued interior and very well mannered and lovely staff and a display cupboard full of postcards from around the world. Although it is fairly late in the day when I visit, the individual cake supply is fairly small with 4 to choose from and some croissants, pies and breads.

Both staffers recommend the orange cake and because I love lemon curd, I choose the lemon meringue pie with its fat squiggly caterpillar like meringue topping and a chocolate pecan brownie as it looks luscious and packed with pecans. I am also given a complimentary almond croissant which makes me happy to no end (yes I am a freebie slut, I blame my previous job for that). It may have been the way that I was looking at them salaciously. With advice to eat the orange cake at room temperature and to keep the lemon meringue pie in the fridge, I stash these away as instructed for later consumption.

The lemon meringue pie is gorgeously lemon curdey, perfect for those who love their lemon curd. Those that are lemon curd ambivalent need not apply. You'll only say "Its too lemoney" whilst your lemon curd loving dining companion will roll their eyes at the wasted portion you've consumed. The meringue is voluptuously soft and creamy - like when you were little and saw clouds and felt that you could reach up and touch them. Its how I always imagined a cloud would taste - exactly.

The orange cake is delicate and moist with syrup, like an incredibly moist friand with a touch of almond meal. Its superb and taste of orange rind and would be perfect with coffee or tea. I imagine serving a whole plate of these delicate cakes to friends and then amend my fantasy to remove said friends and have the entire plate to my wicked self.

The chocolate brownie is incredibly rich, with the top half of the brownie made of rich chocolate ganache. Its deliciously good and would satisfy the most hardcore of the chocoholics (including me). The pecans provide an interesting, and preferable alternative to walnuts. I can only eat two small segments of this as it is indeed so rich but oh so good.

The revelation to me however is the item that I didn't order, the complimentary almond croissant. Its coated in toasted flaked almonds, and slathered inside with that fabulous almond croissant filling made up of almond meal, eggs, butter and sugar. The croissant itself is incredibly layered, flakey but not too greasy buttery as some can be and the bottom is beautifully caramelised due to the syrup dip. Apparently almond croissants were devised as a way to use less fresh croissants and by dipping them into the syrup, filling them with almond paste and rebaking you somehow manage to improve on the original. And who am I to argue with frugality when I am so clearly enjoying this?

I've been told that their breads are heavenly, particularly their sourdough. I am not a big bread eater but I do love a crispy, crunchy sourdough. Sounds like a good excuse for a revisit...

Confiseur & Co

840 Military Road Mosman NSW 2088

Tel: +61 (02) 9969-4599

Fax: +61 (02) 9969-4799

Tuesday-Saturday 7:00-18:00

Sunday 7:00-17:00