Frédéric Cassel, Mille Crêpes Potiron

The last of the cakes on Sunday was from Frédéric Cassel and catches me up with new cakes from them with still two weeks to go until the next month. This is Mille Crêpes Potiron, which has several things going against it. One, is I don't appreciate crêpes, at all, though my biggest exposure is milk crêpe, which makes rollcake look sophisticated, by my estimation, though actually stacking crêpes is does seem more technically difficult. The other is pumpkin (or at leas squash) as a cake flavor. Lastly, decoration cakes, even from good shops often sacrifice the eating experience for appearance. On the other hand, Frédéric Cassel has a good track record for taking types of cakes I've dismissed and impressing me. Also, this is not milk, it's rum and raisin, along with the pumpkin and the ever present FC staple mascarpone cheese (a neutral texture and taste medium for whatever you want to do). As it happens, this was the best of the cakes I had, and definitely good, which certainly puts it at the top of crêpe-based cakes and would make be consider future cakes, though I'll try to stay clear of milk-flavored, really in any kind of cake.

 

Jean-Paul Hévin, Verrine Lavande & Verrine Banane Griotte

Sunday afternoon, as brunch dessert, we got cake for two from Jean-Paul Hévin: Verrine Lavande & Verrine Banane Griotte, the new new items. The first is white chocolate, lavender, and grapefruit, and the second is Dominican chocolate, banana sauce, and cherry. Neither are really my ideal flavors. The verrine Lavande was good, but pretty mind, though you wouldn't really want intense grapefruit or lavender, I would think, so this was as designed and offered a variation over the other cake, which is sweet, and the verrine not ordered, which is coffee and presumably bitter. Despite continued reservations about banana, this was excellent. I have to acknowledge that it's not the fruit, but how it's used that's important. This at least catches me up with JPH's last cake-off wins.