Emporter (Yotsuya), Harmonie and Gateau Fraise

Was mostly busy over the weekend. Saturday, though, I went a couple new places. One was only semi-new, and without cake: the Pierre Hermé in Marunouchi, which sells drinks, some suitable gift items, soft ice cream, and a few baked goods. We got Marron Pie and some ice cream (orange and passion fruit, maybe). The Marron Pie counts as a pastry, though it was after 4 pm, so I'm not called it fresh. Still, it was well made, so counts as excellent within that scope: no complaints.

The soft ice cream was fine, though not within my scope of interest, even with the macarons (which were particularly hard and not like macarons I've made, so I'm suspecting the modified recipe to produce something more robust and cookie-like to stand up being stuck into ice cream, though the shape was correct).

The actual cake came from a new shop in the root clump of loops in my neighbor running course, Emporter (a name shared with a Setagaya shop). I asked for a recommendation, and had suggested Harmonie, which is white chocolate with a (suitably) limited amount of raspberry. The other cake chosen was the Gateau Fraise, though I would have gone with something dark chocolate.

I thought both cakes were good, though that standout good. However, my co-eater was quite impressed by the Gateau Fraise and its generous amount of whipped cream.

Since Japanese strawberry short  (which even the name card gave as a description) is not my thing and my partner definitely does like them, I'm to assume superior power of discernment and record the strawberry cake as excellent, which at least puts this shop in the solid part of the fine shops (important, since this this and the category above it are grossly bloated, so it would only take about ten more new shops to force me to create a new lower category for most of these shops).

L'Abricotier, Gateau Fraise

Took the afternoon off and rode around for about 2.5 hours. The first stop was L'Abricotier where I went with the standard Gateau Fraise. Nice strawberries in this and, as a cake structured for the enjoyment of strawberries and whipped cream, it seemed well made. It was a definitely good, but not my thing personally. This catches up this shop for the quite excellent category, at least until next cake-off. They still overlap with the above superb category, but they aren't the top of their current groups, so the honor of trying to move up will go to Origines Cacao for now.

Otherwise, I took another picture of a park or a picture of another park next to the first park, basically a linear strip used for parks along an old main road that how has a lot of old public housing buildings along it and tried again to get a name for a no name park on the way to Shibuya Station. I'm going to have to settle for Recycling Center Open Space.

I was going to try to confirm the main running course south of Shibuya Station, but I messed up immediately and anyway construction has changed things, so I'm having to revise the course anyway. A restoration of a pedestrian bridge exit allows me to combine one cul-de-sac loop back with the main look, but a big development project removed a road elsewhere, so I'll have to make a new cul-de-sac loop to reach those two churches (among the many in that neighborhood). Comping back, I confirmed that the Omotesando Michalak has the cake-like desert that disappeared from Isetan, so I'll be able to get one more cake.

Frédéric Cassel, Mille-feuille Finger Yuzu

Went to Ginza and had the opposite problem as yesterday: I was slow. Not that this is a huge problem, but I was closer to 7 km/h than 8 km/m the first kilometer, and then again the second. I assume when I was running along the moat course that I was faster, though I lumped it together with the first part going, because coming back with cake, going slightly uphill for 2.2 km was the stretch that I was fastest. Anyway, 7.4 km at the slower speed and 2.2 km for the faster speed today. I'm actually only at 97% of my peak up to a week ago (I allow up to 110%), although that's partially because I just changed the weighting, so there is less difference between 8 km/h and slower speeds than previously. Nevertheless, I plan to take a rest tomorrow and then do some more Meiji Gaien course training running, maybe trying and couple hundred meters at 10 km/h to see whether I can still do that without breaking something.

I went to Frédéric Cassel for the Halloween tart, which was foolish, because specials often aren't available Mondays and Tuesdays, but they had three unfamiliar cakes (or two cakes and some weird thing), so no problem and I can go again next week. I got the Mille-feuille Finger Yuzu this time, which doesn't have side pastry like their other Mille-feuille Finger cakes and I'm really doubting that there were 1000 leaves of pastry in the bottom. Still, it was excellent, very lemony and chocolate rich, since the layers seemed to be solid white chocolate with some yuzu something drawn on it, whipped cream, white chocolate, buttercream, and mille-feuille pastry. These night shoots aren't very flattering to the cake.

On the homemade front, I finished fancy cake recipe number 6, the gateau fraise, although I cheated and didn't refrigerate before eating (it was late and I wasn't that patient) to get the whipped cream to set. This was to demonstrate a biscuit with marzipan 2:3 with flour. It was good. I'll probably make it again in strawberry season, though it didn't bubble up much. Maybe I was supposed to whip it up more after adding the flour, or maybe I can add extra egg yoke to make up for the missing emulsifier, which I can't find at cake supply shops, thought I've asked, bring my recipe with me. Or I'll add a little baking soda/powder. Note that I do not have a "mum" nozzle for my pastry bag, so everything is spooned on.

Also, I made canele, which means I wanted egg whites for macaron shells, which I want for strawberry chocolate ganache I've already made. It's all very complicated. And I haven't found out what I need for fancy cake recipe 7 yet, whatever that is.