Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Choux Vanille versus Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil

Thursday, I took off in the morning and did got cakes for the cake-up skipped last weekend, when I was busy. Since I didn't manage to find a new great cake, I worked through my list to run a 5th-round cake-off for cakes that have only one loss. This pair has the advantage that they are both available at Ginza Mitsukoshi: Frédéric Cassel's Choux Vanille and Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil. These are both pretty basic cakes in their ways, but great. Guayaquil is JPH's base straight chocolate cake; I still haven't tried the thing he showed on public TV of microwaving it to experience the change in flavor chocolate flavor from change in temperature, but that remains a good idea. It's got various layers, so there are texture variations, but the Choux Vanille still has a better contrast, or maybe I'm just a sucker fro the sugar on the pastry, but once again I have to give the win to the one puff pastry on my greats list. Check it out if you get a chance.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil over Frédéric Cassel's Fraisier

Ginza Mitsukoshi with a line before the start.

Did a shared cake-off last Sunday, so I was basing on half a cake, which probably matters, but is not so important. This top it was cakes from the top two cake shops, both a Ginza Mitsukoshi, and both newly available again, though they were still on short hours that weekend.

Frédéric Cassel's Fraisier was the seasonal priority, whereas Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil is their main chocolate cake, and always available. As far as cake-offs go, this is a fourth round, with both of these having lost one of three. Great cakes, but I really like the strong chocolate taste of Guayaquil. Wish I had a little more, because there was something about the texture that I was noticing---I might get this again this year just to do some temperature experiments, since I'm due for another cake from them, and they don't even have excellent cakes that I haven't had twice yet.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil over Ladurée's Plaisir Sucré

Sunday morning I definitely ran, and not to a cake shop, or at least not to get cake. The neighborhood course run part was the revised Central Jinguumae clump, which steals the Jinguumae north loop from a different clump and combines it with the new Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama north loop, which combines three loops. I was successful at the clump and doing the new loop clockwise. In the middle of the run, I check Viron and B-E to confirm that they did not have cakes that I wanted even near opening time, which they didn't. Had other plans for Sunday and ended up being lazy in the evening and not running in the cold.

I did get one food item from a neighborhood course site (I'm working my way through that new Jinguumae-Kita-Aoyama loop, though they are adding new places faster than I'm getting to them, as well as closing them): Aomori Ringo Apple Pie from Ueshima Coffee Shop, which was fairly robust to call a pastry, but it was good enough. They also have fresh scones.

Monday was a total wash, with late work and still very cold, so I opted for an early bed and early run Tuesday morning, which is a holiday. This was a 1.5 hour run that first tried to do the Suga Shrine clump, which is the base clump. I failed at the clump but did revised the main loop clockwise successfully. However, I spotted, where I was lazy in the past and let myself pass a temple on the opposite side of a two-lane divided road and have since revised the whole clump. I was able to merge loops down 2 loops from 4 loops by leaving a tiny loop for the named shrine and a short link from the main loop, which circles it. After finishing the soon to be revised old main loop, I went to Mitsukoshi at Ginza for cake for a cake-off. I didn't get through all the third-round cake-offs last year, so I'm trying to pick up some now between the highest priority (great cakes with at least 2 wins) fourth-round cake-offs. I did a recent addition, Plaisir Sucré from Ladurée, because it's a February cake (based on when I first bought it), though it doesn't really have a season, and Guayaquil from Jean-Paul Hévin, because it's the earliest among the one-and-one great cakes.

Plaisir Sucré has great texture, with both crunch and thick nutty biscuit base, and a sweet smooth taste. However, I have to give the win to JPH, because Guayaquil is the perfect chocolate layer cake, at least today.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil over Au Bon Vieux Temps' Tentation Chocolat

Friday, I did the pasty thing. Still cold a little rainy, but it stopped by the time I got to Sora. I made all the lights but the last (where I took the pedestrian overpass) and managed +10 km/h for a little under 3 km. I tried the Pain au Chocolat and it was okay as a snack but not impressive as a pastry, for which the few layers were either too thick or under-baked, I thought. Of course, it would have been better warm, but I'm criticizing the basic structure.

I went on to practice in order to reinforce the correct path (so I don't have to stop and confirm it next time) on the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azabu Loop and then that the café/boulangerie across from Gaien is still closed, so I don't have to alter my Minami-Aoyama north loop to include it.

Saturday morning was the run for the cake-off. I had a cancellation of my 10 am appointment and could go to Au Bon Vieux Temps early and get the Tentation Chocolat before it sold out this time. I note that the all-male staff (I think) aren't as friendly as some places, though that could just be to me (though it could be more about being sleepy part-times). I've had experience with too friendly. Anyway, after confirm the no changes in line-ups and two relatively close stores, I took the train back to Shinjuku and, after waiting in line for a while at Jean-Paul Hévin (they are really busy with chocolate sales, for Valentine's Day, though they've closed the chocolate bar and use that for the shorter line for cake, as well as higher-end chocolate sets), I got the Guayaquil.

Eating these, I was thinking that I must be comparing two first-round cake-off winners, because these were so obviously great, but actually this was a runner's up second round. I can't fault either. The Tentation Chocolat is almost entirely an extremely dense chocolate cream (or maybe it's a creamy ganache). The Guayaquil is a straight chocolate sponge (I suppose) layer cake, with just a little ganache and chocolate on top. In the end, I feel that the Guayaquil wins for making a traditional chocolate cake so good.

Cake-off: Viron's Gateau au Chocolat over Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil

I'm a couple days behind because there were a couple days without cake.

Sunday, I did a similar run to Friday's, along the History and Culture course from the start of the Gaien Walk to Hibiya Park, with the only difference being that I took the slightly longer way (and definitely hillier way) past Akasaka going back but also stopped at Lawson 100. This was about 12 km at 9 km/h. There was not cake, but there was desert from Kyobashi Sembikiya, which is a fruit place. I just got the Fruit Yogurt, which was more than half banana and not any better than what I have every day for breakfast and four times the price (although we had a 500 yen ticket to use, so that covered 1/3 of two desserts). The other double-priced and slight better dessert was Melon Bavarois.

Monday, I tried going to Le Coeur Pur, which it turns out has moved, so 19 km averaging 9 km/h, though that is in the rain and passing through dense commuting crowd (with umbrellas) from the intersection of Meiji and Yasukuni north of Shinjuku San-chome Station through to at least West Shinjuku Station, and to a less extent at every Marunouchi Line station. As with Ginza, it's probably faster (or at least less frustrating and safer) to go underground and walk under the Shinjuku Station area, which is what I did coming back, from the Odakyu entrance (which, by the way, is the department store where we picked up yesterday's fruit desserts). Because I had no cake and spent an extra kilometer looking around outside and then more effort walking inside around Ogikubo Station the the department store), I decided to treat myself to a Mr. Donut Angel French cruller on the way back, which was good (they are lighter than American donuts, though I'm not sure about U.S. Mr. Donut in particular). Didn't mind not getting cake, since I was planning a cake-off for today anyway.

Cake-off meant getting Guayaquil from Isetan and then running to the Marunouchi Viron for Gateau au Chocolat, which I did successfully. I took the long, hillier way down to Aoyama Avenue going out and came back up the side of Akasaka coming back, though the times were not that different (at least carrying cake) despite the more than 1 km difference, and with the lights I'm not sure that the short way is much faster. It was about 12 km, with the great part at 10 km/h going and 9 km/h coming back. Both cakes are definitely great, so it was hard to choose (but fun comparing). In the end, I decided the Viron's Gateau au Chocolat deserved the win for it's greater simplicity (it's a uniform cake, whereas the Guayaquil is maybe half ganache in layers and falls apart when cut) and lower price, but this is not a single-elimination competition, so if and when I get to a second round, Guayaquil won't miss its chance against another first-round loser.

Rainy day running near Meiji Jingu Gaien: Guayaquil from Jean-Paul Hevin

It's another rainy day, so I got cake first. Well, actually I visited Tokyu Hands first and they had lots of cake pans today, although they were called something different than in my recipe book and none of them were the required size (and few listed their size in centimeters), which is just as well, because I do not have an industrial oven and can't do 30 cm by 40 cm. Still, once I get actual ingredients, I think I'll try to find a small pan for a trial before getting a larger pan. I can do up to 30 by 30 cm with my oven. As far as ingredients, what I need first is egg whites (I'd like to get powered) and hazelnut powder (I've only seen almond). Maybe this weekend I'll get over to Cuoca (not that I can't order online, but I'd like to see their pans, too).

Anyway, for the run, I ran around Meiji Jingu Gaien area. Because I had been trying to do intervals lately, I wondered about doing intervals by distance, since there are 100 m markers there. My easy run (after a 1 km warm-up) was about 40 s, hard was 30 s, and all-out was around 23 or 24 s. Maybe my next thing will be to set a lap speed and see how many laps I can keep it up, but again, it would be easier to do that with a watch that gave me a signal at regular intervals (although I worry about running down the battery quickly). Eventually, I'll care enough to go shopping at a store and see if I can actually try something and see whether it does what I want, which I've only did a little and looked on-line.

I ran about 1 hour, which is not so long, but I kept up a pretty good speed and stopped very little (I avoided standing at stoplights, but just took paths that were available, trying new places).

The cake that I was waiting for was the Guayaquil from Jean-Paul Hévin which was 685 yen (I pointed out that the card said 618 yen, but that did not even get me a freebie, although two people apologized and one person went back to consult someone higher up; butter prices and the weak yen are driving up cake prices everywhere, I've noticed).  The cake is their standard bitter chocolate cake, which is completely great. It's hard to imagine better chocolate cake, but I should acknowledge two things: (i) I had drunk about two glasses of red wine before, so I was feeling pretty positive; (ii) I've had this cake in the past and been disappointed, so you have to watch out for times when it's too humid and hot for this cake; in this case, it went into the refrigerator for a couple hours before I ate it and the temperature is down to below 30 today, although rainy, so not full summer heat, much less the extreme heat that we broke records with this year in Tokyo.

Materiel did not have the same raspberry cake when I went today, so I can't update that post yet.