Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Addiction over Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha Marron

I'll be busy next weekend and so these are both seasonal, so I wanted to get in another round before either disappears. This is a second-round cake-off (occurring today!) requiring only a short run to Ginza Mitsukoshi. One cake is yesterday's winner, Matcha Marron from Jean-Paul Hévin. The last time, I ate it with green tea, whereas this time was Indian tea (grown in China). That might be a little too strong for it, as it's pretty subtle (unusual for chocolate cake, but the amount of chocolate is pretty minimal), whereas fruity cake definitely suits a tropical fruit cake, so Addiction is two for two, taking advantage of its more extreme taste. 

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Addiction over Dalloyau's Trois Chocolat

Not a lot to say. I did some neighborhood running in the afternoon, working on a new major park route as far as north Sendagaya. Not that many parks qualify, but it takes me to some neighborhoods that the cake shop route doesn't and takes a different path. In the evening, I ran to Ginza Mitsukoshi and despite the late hour managed to score cakes for a cake with the seasonal cake Addiction by Frédéric Cassel and the newly confirmed replacement standard chocolate cake from Dalloyau, Trois Chocolat. I say confirmed, because just because their own standard was great doesn't mean the new version has to be, but it was and I still felt it in this cake-off. However, Addiction is much more attractive, as well as being one of the few tropical cakes that I think is great (PS has one, but it's dropped off the line-up, despite being featured on the cover of a book). Unfortunately, I don't have another first-round winner to test Addiction against right now. I'll just have to hope for a couple more great cakes to come along. I do now have two standard line-up first-round losers, so if I get another seasonal cake like that, I'll be ready. Otherwise, I'll hold off for awhile before I revisit them, since they are both from this year.

Frédéric Cassel, Addiction

Finally, the last cake of May was Addiction from Frédéric Cassel. This is coconut mousse, passion fruit, mango, lemon biscuit, and raspberry. It's a cube held together by rigid wall and is really white. It definitely would be about the last cake I would choose from anywhere else, but it was a new cake from Frédéric Cassel and I just couldn't get that excited about the strawberry rollcake. As it happens, this was a great cake that I could recommend to about anyone, though maybe someone who wants something light, because coconut is high in fat and there's plenty of sugar as well, so I'm not saying whether it's healthy. If I'm lucky it will stick around long enough for me to find another cake to do a cake-off with, as right now I don't have anything to match it with.