(Fri) Viron: Citron Noisette

Ran out to Viron today to try to get a new cake, in response to them winning my previous cake-off. I had cycled rather than run the previous day and the heat kept me from pushing too hard, so it was a pretty easy run and went fast both ways. I was somewhat disappointed to be successful, since my backup plan would have added another several kilometers. I didn't split up the time between with and without cake, but the 11 km averaged above 9 km/h.

The cake was Citron Noisette, which is a chocolate mousse dome cake with lemon cream (I think it was cream; it's a little hazy now) and hazelnuts. I had decided ahead of time that I really wanted it to be great, which seemed to work. I appreciated having lots of hazelnut, though otherwise there was nothing surprising other than the lemon and chocolate balanced perfectly, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Right now, this seems to be the standard to beat.

I also tried to make pâte feuilletée, like for mille-feuille, but it was clear after about the fourth fold that things had gone wrong early on, because big pieces of butter started appearing. It still baked up looking good (although it took 35 or 40 minutes to bake), and I definitely got the layers, but they did puff up much, so it was more like a cracker (though still good enough that I ate all of it at once). The picture is just a third of a 300 g recipe (the base recipe was 1 kg, but I definitely wasn't going to try that; fortunately, it's pretty scalable, so my next attempt will probably be only 100 or 200 g).

Homemade brownie for training run

As expected, worked too late to get to Heritage, so I took a no-patisserie day in preparation for the next cake-off (probably Wednesday). My goal was seven 500 m intervals at 13.0+ km/h. Had some trouble at the beginning with the watch display, but finally got it going. It was hard running, although that was partially because, just to be safe, I was aiming for 27 s for each 100 m, though 27.5 s would be okay. I made all seven, with six closer to 14 km/h and one actually above 14.0 km/h. For my short legs, that's not bad. And it feels great afterward running slowly (I was doing about 9 km/h in between and before and after).

Desert was a tiny homemade brownie (well, a couple, actually, before and after dinner, since I need to take in both protein and sugar within 30 min of exercising in order to build muscles). I also had a glass of wine, which may have been a mistake, as the running alone is sufficiently relaxing, so the wine just makes me weak.

Meiji Gingu Gaien course: canelé

Just a training/body-testing run today, about 4 km total, 1.2 km of which was 10 km/h interspersed with some 8 km/h, with the final 1.5 km at 9 km/h to Marusho supermarket to get milk for canelé to use the yoke left over from yesterday's experimental cake component, which was just egg white and almond powder (basically, just an almond, unsweetened shortbread, so it was just a base). I suspect that there was an error in the book that left out more sugar that went in with the almond powder.

I include a picture of the canelé I made because these are actually new: I got a regular mold (maybe 60 ml?), so even you bake it until the outside is brown, it's still custard-like in the middle (and you can taste the rum), unlike the mini-canelés. This should tide me over as far as homemade until Friday, when I plan to make carob brownies (tomorrow, I want to run to Ginza for patisserie cake).

I should also mention that I had another chocolate from Henri le Roux that was excellent, this time the Goma (sesame), which is seasonal. Haven't had a bad one yet, though I have avoided the coffee ones and stuck to the dark coated chocolate ones. I'll do milk chocolate before coffee.

Les Années Folles [Hinka Rinka counter]: Caramel Chocolat

Did a Ginza run to follow up on (P. Les) Années Folles, since there is a counter in Hinka Rinka in Tokyu Plaza Ginza. I started off a somewhat fast 8 km/h for 2 km, where it's most crowded and there are frequent lights (I stop the chronometer, but I slow down approaching hoping not to, at least warming up). The rest was a slow 9 km/h (that is, not really that much faster), which ended up being about 7 km, since I was able to just barely average above 8.5 km/h coming back. So not my longest run recent run, but my longest stretch of about 9 km/h.



The cake was Caramel Chocolat, which was maybe not a great choice, but not a huge selection at the counter and I don't like cherries in my cake usually, so that that ruled out the other chocolate and the pistachio cakes. The caramel was not terrible (not coffee bitter), but not really the sweet milk caramel that I like. There were pear pieces inside, which were somewhat interesting. The bottom was chocolate mousse/cream;  not sure what the differences is, except you whip chocolate but for my chocolate cream cake, you only whip the cream and then combine it with the prepared chocolate mixture (you need some hot milk first to dissolve the gelatin and then the chocolate in). Under that, was a thin chocolate sponge/biscuit bottom layer, which was good enough but nothing special. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it good, but it means that I can go back to just thinking of this shop as good, which was my general impression pre-blog.

My last homemade fancy cake (#7) was "Sphere", though it isn't. As always, I didn't do the decoration part, though I intend to do with chocolate macaron with (homemade) raspberry jam that is supposed to be on top later. This was like chocolate cream cakes (I now know) that I've had before and not thought much of. All I could taste was the chocolate, even though the first two parts are a pistachio macaron base and a cream raspberry layer, which I tasted by themselves and they were excellent and good. If it had been better chocolate, maybe it would have been better cake, but that doesn't really justify the other parts being it beyond structure and color. I actually didn't do a great job on the creme chocolat either, since I had trouble whipping the cream again. I should never try to do less than a full 200 ml, since it never works well for me (this time was half a 100 ml pack). Besides the pistachio base, the chocolate sauce that goes on top is excellent, glacage chocolat, which used the same cheap grocery store chocolate (although also an equal amount compound chocolate for coating, which I got from baking supply store Cuoca).

I might skip doing the whole next cake, "Soleil", which is another fruit (mixed ) in white chocolate, so too much like the orange cake I did and never posted a picture of (what a monster that was, but the Bavarian hazelnut part was good). I do want to try the biscuit dacquoise orange base, although I'm not sure that I'll bother with the orange, since I need half a grated orange peal (if I was making 25 of them) and I don't have the best grater for that.

Viron, Chiboust aux Marrons

I'll lead with the cake: I ran to Viron (as always, the Marunouchi one) and got the Chiboust aux Marrons for 810 yen (really, but it's big), which is a chiboust top and a bottom that is sort of like a tart with chestnut halves in it. I'm slow to come around to chestnuts, but I'm getting there. Just the base as a chestnut tart is excellent, and I would like to see more chibousts and I've never had a better chestnut chiboust, so I'm saying this is great, which is 6th of 10 tried that I've found great there.

The running was too fast. Even noticing that my first kilometer was over 9 km/h, I couldn't get the average below 8.5 km/h going out, although I did coming back (still not going far enough or fast enough for fatigue to be a big factor). I'm seriously chewing through my 7-day running budget, which is why I've only run 31 km compared to my peak walking only a couple months ago of over 70 km (although I also have 20 km cycling this week, which counts only 1/4 of running). Of course, shorter and faster is more efficient and the best cake targets are somewhat close, although I'm going to have to just do the Gaien Walk again (even if I do 9 km/h again, I'll still be within budget) and get cake from Isetan (it's about time I had Jean-Paul Hévin cake again anyway, though I need to get to the Marunouchi location, too).

In home baking news, I started a new cake, which uses a pistachio macaron shell as a base. It's just a simple substitution of pistachio powder for almond power (simple if you can get the powder), but so delicious. Actually, it seems to "macaronage" a lot quicker, so I have to be careful not to over-mix. I had a fancy recipe with egg yolk and syrup which I failed with, at the stage of combining those two, so I went with a simple American pistachio buttercream, which might be too sweet. I'll try to wing a pistachio marzipan buttercream next time (I've still got lots of pistachio powder and enough pistachio paste for another batch), although probably not soon, as I've got a few dozen macarons in the freezer now, not all that successful, though: lots of chocolate ones with cracked shells and ones with chocolate-strawberry ganache, which isn't well balanced. You'll notice that I don't die the shells, or cover them when baking to keep them from getting brown.
 

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.

Maison Douce: Tarte Caramel Jolaine

Went first to Isetan for cake and got Tarte Caramel Jolaine (?) from visiting patisserie Maison Douce for 540 yen. I didn't deliberately choose the one with coconut shreds to sabotage my rating, just I had caramel on my mind. I did notice that they had an unusual number of cakes especially for Isetan, this one being one of them, which makes me think that their regular clientele supports a simpler selection.

Then I went and ran the Gaien (Outer Garden) Walk for the first time in a while; I am not used to those slopes, but I averaged 8.2 km/h over the 4.2 km before running back 0.6 km to Lawson 100. I only took photos and the end, which is the beginning of the Sotobori (Outer Moat) Walk. Here's an album showing the marker and surrounding view. If I ever get the time and strength, I'll do a Tokyo History and Culture Walking Course blog, but no sign of that happening soon.

The cake was fine, that is, good, and the coconut didn't even bother me. The base was strongly attached to the cardboard base and was difficult to cut even with a metal knife, so I'm not that thrilled with the design of this one, but you have to put something under it to support it, I suppose. That little layer of sponge is not going to do it. The main under-layer is a fruit mix with rum (not that strong), but all I can remember is pineapple. From the photo, I can't really tell---strawberry?

In baking news, my last couple macaron attempts were seriously cracked, so this time, I (i) ran the air conditioner on dehumidify from an hour before putting them out, (ii) touched them to try to learn the different textures as they rest/dry, and (iii) tried two different resting times before baking, 40 and 90 minutes. The latter did the trick (notice bellow that I also got "feet", which is related), but I'm not sure which one actually tastes better, because I like some chewiness, which I got more of, perhaps, with the cracked ones, and I'll choose taste over appearance every time. I might just one to bake them longer for more chewiness, although I should turn them half-way anyway (you can also cover them, to avoid browning, I've been told). Note that most recipes say 20 to 40 minutes of resting before baking, but an acquaintance who took classes told me he's done a couple hours and used a fan for making them in summer in Japan, so they are difficult in this climate, at least with the French method.

90-minute rest

40-minute rest

 Next new thing, I need to make chocolate ganache with fruit puree.

Origines Cacao: Bacchus

As planned, I did not run this weekend. Instead, I baked a new cake recipe that I had been collecting ingredients for and did my first cycling for a long time. My knee seems to be okay for it.

The ride was out to Jiyugaoka to Origines Cacao to check whether they are "near-great" and ended up being about a 26 km round trip. I timed the first part was doing about 14 km/h, trying to go the equivalent of a walk as far as effort. It gives me a benchmark. Supposedly wind resistance makes speeding up on a bicycle more difficult for running, which I don't know how I'll handle, but I'm treating this as the equivalent of one-fourth the 7 km/h running distance, as far as my budget (I'm rescaling my budget to 7 km/h running from 6 km/h walking, though that information is not so useful to anyone else).

At Origines Cacao, I struggled to find something that looked good that I hadn't had, so I went with the promoted new one, Bacchus, for 594 yen, which is a chocolate cake with cognac and apricot. It's good, being layers of soft sponge with liquor and chocolate frosting, but maybe because chocolate layer cake is too much like what I've had plenty of in the US, it's not really so exciting. Sorry, it was so bright, I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of (and I forgot the shop again, as usual).

This is not the cake I'm looking for, so Origines Cacao goes back in the "excellent" list. That only leaves me five near-greats, whereas I wanted at least doubt the great, of which currently I have four, although if Dalloyau dropped a level, that would work out, so I keep working on the bottom of the near-greats until I get them up to where I want (half the number of cakes of the greats) before I try to update them.

At least the croissant from Au Bon Vieux Temps was excellent. They have delicious looking baked goods, but I don't think I've gotten anything before.

I also got another chocolate from Henri le Roux on Saturday, Madagascar: This was was excellent too.

Learned/got experience with a lot in my last cake attempt, Essor, I think it's called (I don't have the page with the real French name, just the phonetic Japanese). There was nothing that I did well, but I got the general idea about several parts. The result was pretty ugly, so no photos and I ate the evidence.

Essor has two layers of hazelnut biscuit, which was okay, but a little underdone because I used an upside-down tart form on top of a silicon mat because I don't have a 14.4 cm diameter round Flexipan (nor am I able to find out how I could get one, since even the company doesn't list that size, though it would probably would be about 5000 yen, which is more than I want to pay). For the (gelatin) hazelnut Bavarian cream disk, I completely failed to whipped up the cream, and splattered most of it around the kitchen: the new balloon whisk with the new mixer is proving difficult to use. However, it tasted good, and wasn't overly gummy (though would be different with more and proper whipped cream). This time I needed a 12.5 cm Flexipan (also unavailable), so I used a right-side-up one with some plastic wrap, which was a little leaky but worked well enough. The　(gelatin) orange concentrate and liquor layer, whose phonetic French name I can't figure out besides the orange part, really didn't like my substitute for the 12.5 cm Flexipan and broke into pieces when I tried to separate it from the form bottom (also, I had to boil down my first attempt and try again, as the gelatin and concentrate separated during freezing). This was gummy and too strong to sample by itself, but actually was fine in the cake, except for being ugly. Finally, I had to submerge/embed these layers in creme chocolat-blanc d'orange, again with a little gelatin; I tried chilling everything, but still had a splatter problem, so I did it by hand and didn't whip it enough (I don't really know what 6-minute whip looks like). The 15 cm ring form, which I did buy, leaked, but that might be due to the cream being too thin. It formed a solid cake okay and was good, though I'm not really that interested in cake that tastes that orange, so I won't be trying this again. I still have some orange concentrate, but maybe I'll use it and the liquor for macaron filling. Very educational, though. Now I just need to learn to whip cream, since it's half the next cake, Gateau Fraise.

Mont St. Clair: Mont St. Clair (Isetan exclusive)

Let's start with the cake: I made a mistake and got the Mont St. Clair from Mont St. Clair, which is an advertised Isetan exclusive this week. It is also coffee buttercream with a layer of coffee gelatin, which is as vile as it sounds (to those who do not like coffee, although the gelatin looked nasty up close even before I tasted it) and 582 yen. It's my mistake, so I can't blame them, but I do not trust them for having more than one cake with coffee in it on display, which makes me doubt that they are the shop for me. Still, I should give them another chance while they are at Isetan, since Jiyugaoka is a tough distance for me right now and I haven't posted anything else on them.

The running was okay. It was relatively crowded at Meiji Gaien with people going faster than me in groups, including sight-limited people running with guides, who I often see there, and no where else. It was raining a little, but not unpleasantly. Walked 1.7 km, ran 4 km, with 1.5 of that at 8 km/s and the rest at 7 km/m, alternating first 100 m and then 200 m and once 300 m, although it was hard not to go too slow or too fast, respectively: I need a bigger difference for real interval training, but I'm still just trying just slowly increase minimum speed running.

In fairness, I should also review my own cake. This is number 4 for my exploration of nut biscuit based cakes, Fraise aux Roses. Actually, the pictured one has been frozen once, the strawberries were frozen to begin with (when I made it), and the butter cream was not that fresh by the time I got around to assembling it, although it did not turn out to be had hard except for using a lot of bowls (I need more mixing bowls).

I don't recommend this cake because the jelly topping, which is delicious and sort of simple, dominates, so you can't really taste the pistachio biscuit (and pistachio powder is triple the cost of almond powder, and pistachio paste is double that), even though it is about twice as thick as it should be. I couldn't really taste the rose from the rose buttercream (which was pretty delicious to begin with and still seemed okay yesterday, when I took this picture) and I substituted cherry liqueur for rose liqueur in the imbibage (syrup for spreading on the cake), because I had a deadline and didn't want to search any more. I make these cakes mostly to learn about the process and the components, so I'm not so disappointed that I'll probably never want to make it again. The next one is even more gelatinous, so I need to get some real cake forms or kludge a really short version using my 14 cm tart forms again.

Also, I've figured out the timing to get my mini-canelé made with the silicone mold nice and brown uniformly without burning the bottoms (tops when baking). Now I have to figure out if that's the way I really like these and try buttering the sides more.  Unlike with the metal brioche forms I was using, no trouble getting these out, but not as chewy on the outside from butter and they have a higher surface-area to volume, so I actually be using more butter rather than less, I think. Of course, I could try beeswax, but I'm not ready to go there yet.

Henri le Roux: chocolates

Little sore, but hope special midweek afternoon walk still okay, at least 5 km/h. No cake or running, but got two chocolates from Henri le Roux. These were both excellent, so I'm beginning to see the appeal but have my hands full focusing on fresh cake: Praliné a L'ancienne, which is crunchy amond and hazelnut homemade style praliné in dark chocolate, and Soizig, which is Bretagne buckwheat flour biscuit with homemade-style praliné in dark chocolate, each for 324 yen. Can't choose between them. 
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Homemade dessert assembles cheesecake tartlette, chocolate ganache (from macaron), and whipped cream (from the rest of the cream for the ganache).

Arcachon: Equinox

Got my cake from Isetan again today, from the visiting shop, Arcachon. It was Equinox, for 500 yen, and seems to be tea cream inside chocolate mousse with a raspberry and mini blueberry macaron on top. Now, I thought there was blueberry inside, and maybe there was a subtle amount in the chocolate, but I'll need to go back to find out, which I intended to do because I've decided, partially from giving them the benefit of the doubt, that this was excellent. It's tiny, which is fine, put it puts some of the excellent shops in perspective, because they hold their cake sizes and just raise their prices as ingredient costs go up.

In other news, I've gone almost all the way with a cake recipe from my (the library's really) Super Patissier Book for "cake/batter/biscuit" (it's hard to translate "kiji" into English), which is by the Salon de thé Cerisier guy, where I've never been. There is some overlap between this and the SPB dictionary of "batter/cake", which is available in bookstores.

The first recipe, which was not the first I tried parts of, is the Marjolaine, which has a Japonaismasse (which is German) biscuit as the cake layers, between which it has ganache, creme praline, and creme chantilly. I don't do the creme chantilly for the top or the fancy decoration.

The biscuit is in the proportions 600 g egg white, 600 g granulated sugar, "appropriate" vanilla essence (so I skip, because I don't know, have, or care so much), 500 g hazelnut powder, 100 g of (not bread) flour and 200 g of powdered sugar. From my previous experience, I also add powdered egg white with the granulated sugar, because I can't make meringue without it. All the cakes in the beginning are nut-based biscuits as the cake theme. This makes 4 30-by-40 cm pans, which is 27 pieces of cake final 4-layer cake. For one 14 cm round tart form, which is what I've used, I only need 3% (18 g) of the base recipe, so one large egg is enough for two, and I can cut one in half, although I'd really like to get a fourth form and make all four layers together. Really, you are supposed to cut after you assemble and freeze.

As I was saying, you make a meringue with the egg white and graduated sugar (plus 5-15% of egg white power by weight of egg white, depending on the season) and whip it until the peaks just bend a little before cutting in the other ingredients, which should be sifted (I've got two sifters now, a big one for flour and powdered sugar and a tiny with big homes for nut powders). Then I spread it carefully in oil-sprayed and bread-floured 14 cm tart forms and bake for 30 minutes at 170 deg C in my convection oven (the recipe says 180 deg C, which is edible, but seems overly burnt, but the normal -10 deg C for a convention oven seems to work out).

The ganache for this is 150 g milk, which you boil (which seems extreme, but this is pretty much my first experience with ganache) and then add 300 g of 66% cacao chocolate and then 45 g of rum. For the creme praline, you need 600 g 38% fat cream and 200 g praline almonde (the paste). You combine and whip 7 minutes (or maybe the Japanese means seven-tenths), which means until paste-like. For the creme chantilly, you also need 600 g of 38 % fat cream and 40 g of granulated sugar and otherwise do the same thing. If you made topping, you would need another 150 g of 45% cream and 21 g of granulated sugar and do the same thing, plus some red food coloring and chocolate powder or something. The cake is assembled bottom to top, biscuit, filling, biscuit, filling, ..., so it gets thicker but lighter as you go up; but I couldn't pile the creme praline that high, so that's the one thing I left over of. Actually, I made extra fillings for the first try, so all the fillings were at refrigerator temperature this time, which is not actually part of the recipe. I'm thinking I'm put the creme praline in the freezer next time for long enough to get it thick enough to support the top two layers.

As a said at the beginning, after assembling, you put it in the freezer to harden before cutting, and of course, before eating. The first time, I just cut one biscuit disk into fourths, but this time I cut two disks into halves, so I'll try to actually cut that into two little pieces when it's ready. I'm not ready to take a picture.

Homemade brownies

Well, I can feel yesterday's 1 km run in my left knee, but not in the place I'm most concerned about and not as a sharp pain, so I'll try again tomorrow if the rain is not too heavy.

Recently, I made brownies trying to follow my base recipe that I think like and wasn't happy with the result, so I tried again today and it worked out okay, so I'm making a note here.

I melted 57 g (1/4 cup) of unsaltedbutter with 40 g (about 1/4 cup) of (Dutch process) cocoa powder. Not sure what the fat percentage is, but it's Cuoca's powder, so I trust it, although it's my first bag from them. Prior (of course), I measured out 100 g (1/2 cup) of sugar (Japanese table sugar, which is slightly finer than granular sugar, I think), mixed up 1 large egg (which I don't know how much that is, since I usually use medium, which are about 33 g of white and 18 g of yoke, but the whole L eggs, with shell are 68 g), and measured out 47 g (3/8 cup) of "Violet" "weak" flour with 42 g of chopped walnuts, since the pecans are all gone now. Also, I sprayed six 7.5 cm diameter 10-petal brioche forms with spray oil and floured them well with "strong" (bread) flour.

The chocolate and butter is pretty thick (I turn off the minimum gas flame just before the last butter finishes melting) and gets thicker with the sugar, and only gets a little thinner with the egg and then 2.5 ml of dark rum (because that's the only flavor I have: vanilla essence is really expensive, although that wouldn't stop me if I really thought I needed it). Finally, I preheat my convection oven to 180 degC, mix in the flour and nuts until I can't see undissolved flour and then use a rubber spatula to scrape it into the forms. The batter is really thick, so it would have taken more effort to keep out the bubbles and level it out, but it's all good. And I did a better job of making sure nuts got in every one than last time.

I baked them for 30 minutes. This is exactly the time and temperature that my Better Homes and Garden cookbook says, so normally I should crank that down to 170 degC or decrease the time for the convection oven, but for this recipe, this works better. Note that the original recipe takes 1 oz of unsweetened chocolate, which is a lot less chocolate and but more cocoa butter and produces actual brownies, since it is a fudge brownies recipes, whereas my change makes these more cake brownies, but not like the BH&G cake brownies recipe, which is spongy, no thanks.

Another mistake I avoided from last time was waiting for them to cool (because I wanted to eat diner) before taking them out of the forms. You need to put on oven mitts and shake them out right away. That's also a good time to roll them in powdered sugar (well, okay actually they are still too hot, but as soon as you can stand), which I much prefer to frosting them (plus I had leftover powdered sugar from similar efforts that I wouldn't use for cooking).

So next, besides buying cake, I need to try the 14 cm tart form with the financier recipe and defrosted egg white. I'm saving the fresh egg white (from not fresh eggs, deliberately) for the next attempt at a macaron-type cake. This (the financier) worked well once before, when I butter the form, except it didn't come out will, so I'll use spray and flour like today and see if that works better.

Homemade project 1 and Avranches Guesnay's Renard

Last night, I did some dessert cooking, cheesecake tarts. I choose this next because I had a lot of cream cheese in the freezer, I needed some egg whites for other projects (the crust got me two), and I need some cream for a project. Actually, I realize now, that I need a little egg yoke, so I should have just reduced the recipe and had some creme cheese on bread, but it's too late now. Anyway, I ate the big one.

For professional cake, I bought Renard from Avranches Guesnay for 507 yen. This was this week's recommend cake, so I put off trying their dark chocolate cake again. Renard is a caramel mousse cake with a hazelnut cluster base and an inner layer of dried, at least to the point of being solid, orange, which worked, but was not a major part of the flavor (because it's not that big, just a few millimeters thick). This combination worked for me, although not to the point that I feel a need to seek it out. On the point of caramel, this was somewhat bitter, so not caramel-candy sweet, but not too bitter for me. Basically, the cake was excellent and I enjoyed it, but I'm stilling looking for a great cake from there after too excellent cakes, which is enough to keep my eye on it. First, though, I want to top up my a few of my great shops to 10 cakes, but I'll also get to the backlog of unvisited shops.

Cooking project number two, was to try to make meringue-based cake. It failed again: wasn't stiff enough, but still very edible and the Silpat demonstrated its usefulness. Could double the amount of nuts, though. Not shown is project number three, which was to make rum (because that's the only flavor I have right now: if I get into making chocolates, I'll buy more, smaller bottles, but my interest is still mainly cake) chocolate truffles. I did not manage to get them round, so I'll have to do some research before next time, but the taste seemed okay.

Thursday: Andersen Walnut Scone

Didn't run, nor will I be running for another couple weeks, but went to Andersen Isetan and this time I got actual bread: a Walnut Scone for 248 yen. Besides walnut, it seemed to have maple in it, but in any case, it was excellent.

I also tried cooking. I've got some new ingredients around the house, specifically, at lot of almond powder and also powdered egg whites, so I looked in the Super Patissier Book and found something that I could sort of do: I have the ingredients for the cake part (but not the filling, which is way too complicated, as they often are), which is macaron-like, and thus starts out like meringue, which I've failed with over and over again. This time, it looked reasonable, although still, merginue is a mystery to me, since there are hints not to over-whipping it or you'll break the proteins and they do it in just a couple minutes on yuutube, and elsewhere I've read and been told that it takes a long time (one recipe recommends 9 minutes for the degree of stiffness required), so I'd like to see whether I can get it a little stiffer. Just case, I also prepared ingredients for financier, in case I found myself with just a bowl of egg whites and sugar, but those went back in the refrigerator. I don't have the baking supplies for the recipe though, though, so the bottom was still a mess, but that didn't stop me from eating it. One project for the weekend is to buy a Silpat and that thing you squeeze pastry out of with 1 cm diameter nozzle.

Homemade brownies with almond powder

Made brownies again, this time with almond powder (50% substituted for flour) rather than almonds I ground myself. Still was moister in the middle than last time I made with just flour and the same pecans. On the web, it says that's what I should expect. They are good, but I think I'll try increasing the temperature or decreasing the height, though a little moisture in the middle is not bad and preferred by some. Not a great picture.

Homemade brownies after 15.3 km

Tried to go to P. l'Abricotier, but it turned out that I was wrong about what day they're closed. Also, my left knee was not too happy, so I had to slow down about half way out, 4 km, or maybe sooner, but it mellowed out and seems okay now. Still, I'm considered shortening my next big run, although I'll also not make the mistake of trying to run the next day (I ran about 1 km and then walked home, changed, and went cycling). Also bad, trying to get to the east side of the Yamanote Line by Yasukuni Street (south end of Kabuki-cho), although probably still better than going up Shinjuku Street all the way to the station. Coming back, I crossed at the north end of Kabuki-cho, which was less crowded. I ended at Kukki-Y, where I bought eggs and unsalted butter for brownies (I had enough butter already, but it's good to buy ahead, although I could find cheaper a couple other farther places).

It was a slow (although with some fast bits, but, as I said, Yasukuni Street was crowded) 8+ km out and a very slow 7.25 km back. Right as I left the market, it started to rain, but I was prepared with an umbrella on my pack. Ten minutes later, the thunder and lightning started, but I made it safely inside.

The brownies were an experiment substituting half the flour with ground fresh almonds, but the oil, perhaps, made them a little wet, so they were less cooked in the middle. That is not necessarily a bad thing for brownies, but I couldn't see any plus side, so I'll probably want to repeat the experiment with almond powder instead. Also, I finished off the financier-type mini-cakes, so I may need to get some egg white powder as well, plus cocoa mass maybe, instead of using cocoa powder, although there are a lot more choices of powder.

Cycling to Yu Sasage: Le Matine

Tried to run, but wasn't that surprised to find that my left knee was not up to it after yesterday's 43 km run. I'm still surprised I managed 51.5 km for two days last weekend (although that's within my maximum one-day of last year). From here forward, I'll have to consider whether I can do one-day or two-day weekend running, although all the History and Culture course I have coming up require too long a run there and back to allow much for a second day, so I'll try to stick to one-day runs with cycling on the other day (if there is one). There are six more H&C courses left to do, and four are already manageable if I can keep increasing my distance by 10% each time (don't need to the next two except for training, but will need it for the following two). The last two require about 100 km of running, so I won't be surprised if I never manage them (at least without resorting to a bicycle).

Cycled to Yu Sasage again, since I had it down as potentially great. Instead of running through the middle of the Shinjuku Station area (and also along Shinjuku Gyoen, which is crowded with visitors due to cherry blossom viewing season), I left using the road between Shinjku Gyoen and Meiji Shrine, which worked well. Then the issue to explore was whether to cross under Expressway 4 back to the more northern parallel route I've used recently or follow along the expressway. Parts of 4 (really, the road under/around 4, which is raised) are fine, but the parts that are built up around stations can get crowded with people and crowded with buildings that cars pull out from between, so I've concluded that it would definitely be worth a short extra trip north to get off it. There are some southern roads that parallel 4 for a bit, but not as dependably (namely, you can't necessarily cross the main streets when you come to them or you have to make weird turns to stay on course) or long.

At Yu Sasage, I got Le Matine ("The Morning") for 470 yen and took it to a nearby park that was not full of cherry trees, so I could get a bench to sit and eat, as well as take a picture. This is an apple mousse cake. I choose it because it was first in line among things I hadn't had (excluding standard low-priority things, such as mont branc, short cake, baked cheesecake, and cream puffs). Was a little worried at the beginning that this was going to be just good, as the fromage blanc cream that make up the largest part of it is not that interesting by itself, but the green apple taste really went with it, the biscuit base was good, and the macaron, which I ate with the last bite, was a perfect touch. I didn't have any trouble judging that it was definitely excellent. Maybe if I liked apple, or really fruit, more, then I would have thought it was great, but I'm not going to try that hard to be objective. Ultimately, I want to rate cake and cake shops on how much I like the cake. In defense of my phone, the screen on my digital camera (10 years old) was not any better outside. The camera is still easier for transferring the picture to my computer, though. It's disadvantage is it's heavy (for running).

Back to Yu Sasage: since this is three excellent cakes to two great cakes, I'm going to move them from tentatively great to tentatively excellent (although definitely at least excellent), which means it will not longer be a priority to keep going back there. In other Yu Sasage news, they did have a fondant in the store, so maybe it was not just an Isetan thing (it did not say that it was a raspberry fondant, but it still had raspberry on the outside, at least, so it's probably the same). Also, I picked up their card for BéBé de la P. Yu Sasage, which is a branch to the south that, while not closer, would be on a nicer and more familiar route, although their hours are 11:30 to 18:00, which is a little restrictive.

Related in the sense that I would have bought Yu Sasage's if they had a fresh-baked tray out like the last time I was there, I tried making financier-like cakes yesterday using my 7.5 cm, 10-petal, brioche forms. The picture shows what one egg's worth of eggwhite makes (I used two, but ate half, including the most burnt ones: I lowered the temperature but did not reduce cooking time to account for using a confection oven). They're very good, so now I know what to do with egg whites left over from making tart crusts, custard, or whatever. I used almonds ground just to the point that the pieces were starting to stick together as a stage of almond butter. It would be interesting to try with almond powder. The recipe calls for "finely ground almonds" and I've read elsewhere that there are differences in some but not all recipes between using almond flour and the courser almond meal, but baking supply stores here seem to just have almond powder, and I can't tell from pictures how much finer flour is than meal, except that both are finer than what I used, which still had the almond oil in it. Next project is to make brownies substituting some ground almonds for flour, then maybe make both with almond powder instead of my self-ground almost almond butter (need to get back to Cuoca at Nihonbashi, though, which seems to be the best place to by a kilogram of almond powder) before trying madeleine-type cakes, again with the same forms. 

Akasaka Palace course and homemade cream cheese frosting brownies

Decided to rest yesterday, to stay within my running budget both today and Saturday (because I ran fairly long Sunday). I need the kilometers today, because I had a grand plan to run 16 km to a cake shop, but something actually important came up, so I didn't get out running until after 8 pm. I've not very flexible: once I decide what cake I want, I don't want to change to anything else, although I could have gone to Piece Montee, I realized as I started, but given that I was expecting heavier wind (although not the little rain I saw), I probably would have still stuck with my actual substitute plan even if I had thought of Piece Montee earlier. I wanted to do 3 fast laps around the Akasaka Palace course, which I did: 1.46 km slow getting there, three 3.3 km laps, the first two just barely fast and the last desperate one actually decently fast, and then 1.46 km very slow and bouncy home, which worked well to loosen up my back, I think. I've feeling very relaxed now.

But no cake. I made brownies again yesterday, this time reducing the cooking time 10%, so the middle was visibly less baked than the outside, and I frosted them with cream cheese frosting, which was wonderful the first couple, but the novelty has worn off by now, so it's just as well that there is only one left for tomorrow (I'll have half at lunch, maybe, and half when I get home before working out). Since I didn't get cake today, I'll get cake from Isetan tomorrow if I can, despite not running tomorrow (so as not to mess up a Saturday morning long run).

Cycling to Paris S'éveille

Thought I needed some exercise, so I took a trip down to the hardest to reach definitely great cake shop (knock on wood), but forgot to bring their card with the list of things I've posted on. I almost gave up and went to one of the four recommended but unvisited places out that way (although, only one of those was on my portable map, and one was misplaced on my Google map).

I was fairly sure that I had never had Tarte Pomme Yuzu, so I got that for 540 yen. Used my phone camera again, which really is not bright enough for outside (something to think about next time I get a new phone, since it's not bright enough outside all the time). As the name implies, this is a tart with apple and yuzu. It was well constructed and the flavors balanced well, or they would if I liked yuzu more. This was a harder call than yesterday's pistachio and cherry, but I'll still say that this was excellent. I'm not sorry for having had it and would be curious to have it again, but hopefully shared with someone, along with something less citrus sour.

The need for the exercise goes back to having made brownies, using my brioche forms (which I just bought 3 more of). When fresh, I would call these excellent, although the problem is that they don't stay fresh. And they don't say uneaten: I scarfed three of these down last night. I'm already making half a batch, so I'm just gong to have to freeze them and figure out how to defrost them so that they are still excellent. Anyway, I also need to experiment with baking time amount per form (this was half a batch, 100 g sugar and 1 egg worth, in 6 forms). Also, instead of coating in powdered sugar (which is great), I'll try frosting them with cream cheese frosting (or just cream cheese would probably be good).

In the afternoon, I went for a walk through the Shinjuku Station area department stores looking for something like what was in this wrapper, namely, dark chocolate with nibs. No luck. Actually, I don't know where to search for good chocolate in Tokyo. Tried to stop at &Market coming back from Jiyugaoka today, and found that they had ended their relationship with Bonnat (although their store front sign is still has them as a kind of subtitle to &Market). This particular by Mobar was 500 yen, which seemed really expensive in Indonesia to the buyer. If I google Monggo, besides their website, I find posts of people saying why is this so expensive in Indonesia, though not about this particular variety. To me, this was great, enough that I was searching (although not enough to stand in line to get inside Jean-Paul Hévin in Iseitan).

Finally, Kouign Amann from Fauchon. Usually, I would go to Shinjuku Takashimiya (which is actually in Shibuya-ku), but I picked this up in Keio. It was okay. In evaluating cake shops, it's hard to know whether to call this cake or bread, but I guess I should keep it as bread and evaluate shops based on their fresh cakes.

Sunday night: custard tartlets

Since I was left with strawberries, I tried using my brioche forms to make tartlet shells, which worked with no mishaps, and I filled them with custard and strawberries (not very well arranged). The result was okay, but not really worth the effort, although I've got some ideas on ways to improve it. Still, I was felling a headache from either pollen allergies kicked up by the rain or fighting off a cold, so it worked as comfort food. I was still feeling other typical symptoms in the morning and the temperature had gone from a high Sunday of 22 C to being 4 C with a little snow in the air by the evening of Monday, so I quickly decided against running. Instead, I tried again to do my indoor workout and could. Also, I could clean up from yesterday, including making this post. With any luck, I'll be fine tomorrow and be able to run, perhaps to Potager.