Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Chocolat Pralin over Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha Marron

Catching up on the previous week as far as Tokyo cakes (from being busy over the Christmas to New Year's Day period, though I had other nice cakes), I did the first of two cake-offs. Since they are my top cake shop and the line-up could change as early as mid-month, I started with a fourth-round cake-off for recent new Jean-Paul Hévin cake Matcha Marron. I pitted it against another cake with only 1 win in 3, Sadaharu Aoki's Chocolat Pralin. It wasn't my first choice, but it's available even during the year transition period (unlike Ladurée's regular items). Though I wasn't thinking about it, I know I considered Chocolat Pralin as a heavy hitting that started with two tough cake-offs, though I shouldn't be surprised that it takes the win. Matcha Marron is an interesting combination of flavors, but there is a reason traditional combinations are traditional.

Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Chocolat Pralin over En Vedette's Mont-blanc

On my last morning off in the series, I did a cake-off, but since it was Tuesday, a couple cakes that I wanted would unavailable, so I finally did the third-round between two-time losers. That sounds bad, but these stayed among the great cakes despite losing, so I wasn't that worried about either of them. In particular, I remembered the Chocolat Pralin by Sadaharu Aoki as being definitely great, just matched against heavy hitters both times. It gets the win this time, which is not surprisingly. I really like chocolate and praline, and it's a good sized cake. It's weakness is perhaps it's simplicity, so would could get tired of it. In this case, I think I had tea and I had another cake to breakup things, really nice mont-blanc which gets a good amount of meringue in by sandwiching the cream wrapped in chestnut past between two disks. No disappointments with either.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Bergam over Sadaharu Aoki's Chocolat Pralin

Actually, I'm not sure whether running was involved. There was certainly a lot of walking. I know I visited the Marunouchi Sadaharu Aoki (because I was over in that neighborhood hood) to confirm they had the Chocolat Pralin, then went to Ginza Mitsukoshi and scored a Bergam, which was about to be pulled from the line up, and then went back and picked of the Aoki cake and walked both back to Yotsuya in Shinjuku (there are other Yotsuya in Tokyo, I think).

Bergam is close to being a standard JPH design, with the special element being the orange flavor. As great as the Chocolat Pralin is, I have to the with to Bergam, though both cakes proved in this second round that their first-round losses were due to their tough competition there.

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Deux Mille Feuille over Sadaharu Aoki's Chocolat Pralin

For my run, I went a long way to Sadaharu Aoki's Marunouchi shop to satisfying myself that the cake I had thought they had did not exist (at least not this year: I think I was conflating cakes, though I was sure I had seen a Marunouchi exclusive on a green tea cake, so not the Bamboo, which you can get everywhere). I had already bought my cake at Isetan, so no problem. I might have to get a cream puff next time, but maybe something seasonal will come out in the mean time: July is almost here. The run was an easy 9 km/h over 11.1 km (69 m up and down each).

Today's delayed cake-off (prepared since last Thursday) was Pierre Hermé's "Deux Mille Feuille" versus Sadaharu Aoki's "Chocolat Pralin", two heavy hitters, both in terms of the shops and the cakes. These are both definitely great cake, but the total decadence of the Deux Mille Feuille wins out: praliné mousseline, praliné feuilletée, as well as the normal caramelized layered pastry. This is one of my favorite cakes, so don't think the Chocolat Pralin was not also wonderful. Tomorrow will be more running and less cake.

Laps and Sadaharu Aoki Chocolat Pralin

Tried to do 7'/lap for 10 laps and failed from the start. I'm sore and just didn't have the will to push myself that hard for that long. I did make 10 laps within 7'15''/lap, but by less than 10 s total, so not that impressive. I knew I wasn't pushing as hard because I wasn't puffing as hard or burning as hard, but my back was not happy so I decided that I was going fast enough. I need to add regular back stretches. I've done 8 laps at 7'/lap previously (as part of 9 laps), so I need 9 laps at that pace to show improvement. I'll try that next or move over to seeing what how I can do with 2 laps around Akasaka Palace.

Cake was Chocolat Pralin from Sadakaru Aoki by way of Isetan for 780 yen. Pricy, but didn't buy cake yesterday (I made cake, and had some today and decided that the evaporated milk recipe is not worse than the cream recipe, and cheaper, mainly because I use less evaporated milk, though it's harder to find). According to the online description, the cake has some orange biscuit, which I didn't notice, but no mention of chocolate dacquoise. It definitely has chocolate cream and cream praline. It has feuillantine (?), which I assume is almond based, but seems accurate from the texture. Anyway, it all goes together and is chocolaty and praline without being overpowered by that. I thought that this was one that I had been indifferent to when I did the sampler set at Tokyo Midtown, but no disappointment today.