L'Abricotier: Sicilien Figue

Due to rain, it was not too hot to run today (even after the rain stopped in the afternoon, it was cloudy, so the temperature did not rise so much), and I did rather than cycle, to L'abricotier, even though I ran long yesterday (due to my own mistake) and plan to run long tomorrow. However, I had not need to exhaust myself, and good reason to save some strength for tomorrow (when I'll be racing against closing time), so it was 9 km/h out and 8 km/h backStill, it was not cool and it was presumably 100% humidity. I started out mistakenly taking the path toward Aigre Douce, but they are both northwest, so it was easily correct and actually was probably better than the usual path. In generally, I just switched between north and west depending on the light until I got to Waseda  Road. Coming back, I swung by Jun Honma, just to look in, and then circled around Koenji and came back most by Okubo Road, which is not very direct but was a nice change until I passed Yamanote Line, where the crowds of tourists to the Korean area mad it hard going. Not sure that Yasukuni Road would have been better, but it's less gritty.

The cake, which I ate in, was Sicilien Figue, which is wine-boiled fig in mousse, pistachio cream/mousse (can't remember what the card said, and there were two layers), fruits rouge (of or including raspberries) gelatin, and some pistachio biscuit. I really like a good pistachio cake and am often disappointed. This did not disappoint me, it was, I think great. The pistachio was flavorful, the fig complemented it, and the fruits rouge accented it, everything harmonizing.

As a result, I've decided to return L'abricotier to the Quite Excellent category, though it's a little bloated now (as in real life, preferences are not well-ordered, so there are multiple candidates for getting the boot, though L'abricotier is strictly better than at least one). That takes some pressure off reviewing the less frequented Excellent ones, though I'll get to that soon. Also, it means it's time for another cake-off, so that clarifies my weekend somewhat, and also suggests that maybe Friday night I'll do a cakeless training run so that I can get to a new shop on Sunday.

Aigre-Douce: Miroir Cassis and Canele de Marquet

Had a real run of 12 km, still at a slow speed of almost 7 min/km average, but no problems, so I plan to run again tomorrow, despite making my goal of 20 km for the week today. I worked hard to keep in shape while I couldn't run, so if my right lower-leg tendon is happy, nothing else should give me trouble, although my hips while I was running didn't quite seem used to it toward the end (no problems, though).

I ran to Aigre-Douce, as a great shop that needed further visiting, and got Miroir Cassis for 530 and Canelé de Marquet (the last one, which was somewhat hidden) for 230 yen. Up until the actual time of ordering, I thought that I was going to get the cake next to the cassis one, but suddenly realized that I had misread the name and it was actually something I've already had/blogged, so no time to read the card. I'm counting on memory and a description lifted from Google. I had also already picked out a different baked good before I as a new canelé to try, as well.

The cake was very good, and I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt that it was great, because I can't think of any way to make it better that would not make it a different cake completely. The cassis is in the mousse outside and inside there is lemon panna cotta (cooked cream) and red fruits gelatin. Outside, are what look like macarons to me, although called something different on the blog I was comparing with.

The canelé is different from other ones in being more wet/custardy inside, although not in a bad way. Still, it didn't stand out.

I tried to make canelé today and failed, but not in a discouraging way: they burned. My recipe says 26 min for 20-gram size and 45 minutes for 70 grams, so I went with 40 minutes. My forms are very short compared to regular ones, and I don't know what that implies. The burnt taste is enough that I wouldn't want to give them to anyone else, but not enough to stop me from eating them, so I put the remainder in the freezer so that I at least don't eat them all today. Struggling to decide how many minutes to try next: 35 min or 30 min. I suppose 30 min, since I might theoretically back them back to bake longer if they aren't done, although I'm not sure whether that would work.