Leave it to B is a bakery affiliated with The Merchants of Ultimo, a food collective that ‘embodies food in it’s most honest state’ and providing the ‘perfect balance of the exotic and the familiar’. Shortly after it opened in mid-September 2016, N, T and I visited.
Ordinarily, we ‘d trek down to KOI Dessert Bar for unfailingly good cake, but it was heavily overcast and threatening to rain, and the bright colours of the cakes in the glass cabinet at Leave it to B drew us in. With T in tow, we picked three cakes from this previous unheard of patisserie –
This is the Citrus Pillow ($8.50) with lemon butter, Italian meringue and sable.
N and I love a good lemon meringue tart, but none have since measured up to the one at Blackedmith Cafe & Bakery in Surry Hills. While other lemon meringue tarts usually disappoint with lemon curd that’s all sweetness and no zesty sourness or meringue that’s too loose, this one is in a class of its own. The lemon curd reeked of cheap bottled lemon juice – this is a first, and really, fresh lemons aren’t that expensive – with a nauseating aftertaste of off dairy. The meringue is fluffy although its presentation lacked finesse, and the sugar shards were not crisp and stuck to your teeth. Indeed, this lemon meringue tart is the very worst we’ve tried – so bad we couldn’t stomach the rest.
This is the Jasmine ($8.50) with jasmine tea whipped ganache, cherry jelly and almond jaconde.
The first flavour from each bite is sweet with strong jasmine notes that quickly gave way to an acidic note that’s not distinguishable as cherry or even berry, butthere are bits and pieces of berry-like fruit in the jelly. This cake is a minor improvement on the lemon meringue tart, although it has its own issues: the same nauseating dairy aftertaste came through in the ganache after the jasmine recedes after the first hit, and the purple glaze on this cake is rubbery with the most terrible mouthfeel.
And finally, this is the JuJu ($8.50) with rose creameux, lychee jelly and craquant praline.
The rose notes came through boldly in the creameux, although its consistency was not smooth or soft and rather crumbly. The unsweetened lychee jelly centre held bits of the fruit, but again it was not the right texture, being more of a claggy paste. As with the Jasmine above, the flavour of the dairy became offputting by the second half of the cake – really, what’s wrong with their dairy?! – while the glaze was again rubbery. The cake was not at all light and refreshing as you’d expect from the failsale combination of lychee and rose. The craquant didn’t add much. This is the ‘best’ of the cakes we tried, but that’s not saying much.
Leave it to B leaves a lot to be desired and ‘B’ should leave it to the pros. Indeed, we’d rather skip dessert – and we love dessert and plan entire meals around what we want for dessert – than return. For those inclined to try it out for themselves – and I’d recommend against it – there’s very limited seating, and you’re better off with takeaway, although the flimsy plastic spoons they provide make it near impossible to eat the cakes.
Leave it to B is located at Ground Floor, Broadway Shopping Centre, 1 Bay Street, Glebe NSW 2037.