Noix de Beurre, Peach Tart

At Isetan, bought cake for two. I didn't have anything particular I needed, so I didn't choose. The main attraction was the seasonal Peach Tart, which is a whole peach compote (with honey and lemon) with custard inside on a tart base. It's certainly good. Not sure how focused the picture is, but other online pictures look similar, so it might just be the glossiness of the peach rather than the focus on the plastic. 

Sadaharu Aoki, Pêche Verveine

Anxious to get beyond recent disappointments, I got one cake a head during last week, which was a hard week, and went to Isetan and got their Pêche Verveine, which has been a new cake for a while. Like other new cakes, this differs from the their classic shape. In fact, though flat, it is rather peach-like, apparently flavored with the herb verneine, which the Japanese know by the name lemon beebush; it's South American. Anyway, I'd have to have this cake again to catch it, which would be okay, as this was excellent. The texture is somewhat peach-like as well, being semisolid and moist (with peach cream as well as confit), though balanced by the sable base. Sadaharu Aoki manages to stay above its challengers.

Frédéric Cassel, Roulé Pêche

As I mentioned in the previous post, I got a Frédéric Cassel, Roulé Pêche on Sunday, as my third cake. This is a peach role cake with cream and mascarpone cheese (a common ingredient at FC). The description doesn't indicate anything about the biscuit part, but it seems less spongy that roll cake usually is, so I suspect some almond powder. It it may just because it includes a crust, whereas usually they cut that off. Anyway, I think it's an improvement and the peach goes well and is a nice variation, so I can say this was excellent, which might be a first time for saying that about a roll cake.

On the running front, I think that was the day I tried the full cake shop neighbor route I've constructed, which extends from southwest Yotsuya Sta., past Sendagaya Sta. and around the park to southeast Shinjuku/Shinjuku San-choume Sta. It's about 12 km and covers 16 neighborhoods (though there are fewer than 16 cake shop sites and it doesn't actually enter every neighborhood, unlike the Top site course). Friday night covered a longer course, 16 km 20 neighborhoods. More recently, I'm working on a major park (namely, the ones with toilets) neighbor course, though I'm working late and haven't even done the part I know.

Ryoura, Marquise

Saturday, as well as the Mont-Blanc for the cake-off, I bought a second cake at Ryoura for efficiency/social distancing's sake, since I expected getting more cakes from Ryoura, a quite exceptional shop, would be the next thing, since I was about to catch up on exceptional shops. However, the demotion of the Mont-Blanc actually meant that Ryoura was at the bottom of the quite exceptional group and likely to get replaced by one of two up-and-comers, so the 19th new cake is maybe several years ahead of its time, or at least I'll have to consider carefully after the next cake-off win whether the reward has already been given, but that's not likely to be until next year until the caramel salt tart finally returns: I'll have to watch for hints online, since I don't expect to get out that way.

Last time I went with a variation of a cake I've had before, so this time I choose something I definitely not had, Marquise, which is white peach flavored and, I was warned, has alcohol. The flavor was nice, but as the shape suggests, this requires a good amount of gelatin to maintain form and the resulting texture didn't agree with me, though I've had similar cakes that were excellent. In this cake, good as the best I'm willing to say, but I can certainly imagine someone else appreciating this cake more, as it is well made.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Peach Shortcake

Decided that I didn't want to run to Ginza again (like Tuesday) and instead ran to Roppongi Hills again (like the previous few days). It's not such a far run but I did do four 1-min dashes on the way and ran most of the way back. I went to visit Fiorentina Pastry Boutique at Roppongi Hills, which is the pastry shop for Grand Hyatt Tokyo. My justification was that FC was 2 cakes down out of 48, whereas one exceptional shop was 2 cakes down out of 6, so they should be the priority, but the latter was below Fiorentina, so first I had to resolve where Fiorentina belonged. Unfortunately, though Fiorentina are open fairly late, they don't have a big selection late, so my choices for a fifth cake were between three kinds of shortcakes and a couple verrines, so I went with a shortcake. I chose a slight upgrade from the basic model and got the Peach Shortcake. There's also a high-end shortcake for more than double again the price, but I would want to share that. By virtue of a slight detour on the way back, I completed the new Nishi-Azabu northeast loop clockwise, so I should be able when I finished it off with the larger loops on the other side of the main street that I've been working on, hopefully Friday.

The shortcake was typical in structure, but peach was an excellent choice and I have to admit that it was excellent, which I was not expecting, given my preference for heavy cakes. This balance of cake, cream, and fruit was much more to my liking than last night's, but still it was the fruit as central. This puts this shop squarely above at least one exceptional shop with the same number of cakes, so it gets moved up and Bubó Barcelona gets moved down to the quite fine group, perhaps never to be visited again for cake, though it's solidly a fine shop. Still at least two more challengers from the quite fine group to go before these two groups are properly separated, though now that Lenôtre is settled, I can visit a completely new shop. Before that, I think I'll work on the two-cake quite fine shops tomorrow.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Estate

After visiting a top 3 shop (quite superb) Tuesday, and a top 15 shop (quite exceptional) on Wednesday, I went for a shop in the quite fine group that I want to slim down to being part of the top 63 shops. This time it was the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is the pastry shop attached to the Tokyo Grand Hyatt Hotel in Roppongi Hills. It's been more than two years since I was last there. On the way, I ran the 550 m bordering the Akasaka Palace grounds and walked the rest, but was a start at running again.

As cake, I got Estate, I think. My main concern was not to get the same cake as previously more than worrying about the details, so I didn't finish reading the card before ordering. From the card and the taste, this definitely has peach and liquor. It also obviously has a lot of white chocolate. I'm not sure about the cake layers, as there was a brown layer and a green layer. I ate with green tea and either the green in the cake was green tea or it was pistachio that harmonized with the fruit. In any case, it was very nice and different from other cakes I've enjoyed, so I'm going to say that it was great. I don't have any candidates to quickly get it in a cake-off and it seems seasonal, so the immediate consequence it to put it at the top of the quite fine category, making a candidate for promotion. I'll try to get back there in the next couple weeks.

Le Salon Jacques Borie: Tarte aux pêches de vigne

Today, I got the Tarte aux pêches de vigne from Le Salon Jacques Borie at Isetan. This is a tart of a particular type of red peach. I don't get too exciting by fruit tarts, but I have to admit that this was exceptional, so I can say that it was excellent. I'm still not going to try their Opera (too much coffee), but I will try their Savarin au Rhum sooner than I would otherwise.

Paris S'éveille, Tarte Mange Caramel and Ryoura, Éclair Pêche

After some morning business, I set off for Ryoura by way of some sights I wanted to photo and Paris S'éveille. First, I got new photos for an Aoyama neighbhorhood park because I thought Google Maps had lost them when my map crashed, though it turns out not. Then I went looking for a shrine that Google Maps showed on my Aoyama route, but that seems to have an echo of the one 1 block away, which I already have, because I couldn't find another one. From there, I was more productive (in a sense) and got pictures for the Shibuya--Minami-Aoyama Loop, which I've yet to do as a one-way neighborhood run but expect to soon. I added Clinton Street Baking and expanded the loop, since they have "baking" in the title and seem to have cake, if not the kind I'm looking for (these were sort of American dinner-type cakes, perhaps, though I only saw one type walking by, not the several on the website).

At Paris S'éveille, I had a few choices for a new cake, so I went with the "recommended" one again. It was called Tarte Mange Caramel, which I assume was supposed to say Mangue (mango), except I didn't recognize what they were talking about in the description that included the corresponding word; thought it was something about tea. I ended up eating this nearby rather than carrying it. It's, I think, an orange baked tart with a top that definitely has mango chucks, maybe has caramel (not sure how the caramel works in, since the mango is raw), and is gelatinous but in a disgusting sticky way. Not sure whether the decoration is coconut, which it looks like. Fruit is not much my thing, but this had a nice balance of textures and the fruit seemed well served by the cake rather than better on its own. I can say that it was excellent.

I continued running to Ryoura, which I got cake to take home this time. This was cake number 10. I'm trying to get this shop up to 11 cakes, as a new quite excellent shop, though it's near the top of that group, so it's theoretically in the best position to make the jump to the next level, but there's a pretty big gap. Next weekend I'm busy, so maybe I'll go next the following Monday, when I'm off early for other business. This time, I decided that I would give one of their two éclairs a chance, the Éclair Pêche. Similar to the other cake, while not my usual thing, I would say that this was excellent. The crispness of the pastry went well with the softness of the fruit and its flavor, so I'm really believing that fruit is better for éclairs than chocolate, on average.

Takano: Rare Cheese

Decided to swing by Isetan to see if there were any unexpected changes for August (not that I found) and check out the line up at Yu Sasage (which didn't have either of the cakes that I was looking for), which is visiting from today (next week is a non-Tokyo shop, so outside my interest). Didn't get anything there, so I went to one of the last two remaining neighborhood shops that have branches in that area, Takano (the shop on the neighborhood map is the counter at Toukyuu Food Show, in Shibuya), which has their own building in Shinjuku near the station and has take-out cake in the basement, with access from the subway corridor. I decided to get what I think was called just Rare Cheese, which is a rare cheese dome over a short roll cake (double-layer) base around a peach center, I think. It was definitely good, though moist spongy cake is not my thing, but a nice change, actually, so I'm pleasantly surprised, especially based on other cakes from fruit dessert shops.

The running was long, 90 minutes. I did the neighborhood course (one way), picking off various loops that don't lead to any other loops: Sendagaya northwest loop (going through the heart of Harajuku), then down and around to Jinnan (which is actually outside the Yamanote Line, so forget what I said about inside being my priority), and then back up past Harajuku Station to the Sendagaya west and southwest loops, which are pretty out of the way. So that means the next options are to go outward from Yoyogi Park, which takes a while to get to and then to get down to near the northwest side of Shibuya Stn., where the isolated loops are, or down to the new Shibuya east loop, and there will be a tiny loop even east of that just to pick up the Lindt shop there north of the station. Also, the Shibuya--Minami-Aoyama Loop wouldn't be bad; it's farther than the Nishi-Azabu loops, but short. Before, those, though, I think I have add a new loop in Kitaaoyama going through Gaien, now that the pedestrian bridges are repaired across Aoyama-douri there; I also need to get some photos to go with that, as well as some scattered ones of places that I've added on current routes.

[Fri] Yu Sasage: Chiboust Mangue Passion, Deux Fromage ｄ’Été, and Savarin Pêche Melba

Did my running early, in a winding path through Akasaka to Tokyo Midtown, where Toshi Yoroizuka continue to not have old favorites (though I'll visit for something new soon, so it matters that they have something, though I'm not sure that I'll go to Midtown for it). Set off thinking I might do some sort of speed or pace training at Meiji Gaien, but it was too hot and humid (i.e., not raining). I think I did 9 km at about 9 km/h, but I was using paths that Google Maps does not allow (cutting through the park-like path and bridge between a couple buildings), so couldn't calculate very exactly.

In the evening, there was a request for cake, and since Yu Sasage was available and convenient, we went there.

The first cake I had half of was the Chiboust Mangue Passion, which is what it sounds like (a mango and passion fruit chiboust). As chiboust's go, it was more gelatinous (versus airy) than I expected, but still I thought it was excellent. The "egg wash", if I'm getting the translation correct for the Japanese-French, for the bottom caramel tart has mango, as well as banana, whereas the chiboust part has the passion fruit, according to the description. I look chiboust and this as different without being bad, so I found it excellent.

The second cake was Deux Fromage ｄ’Été, which is a summer two-layer (baked and rare) cheesecake flavored with pineapple confit and passion fruit and mango gelatin. I thought the cake was a little grainy, somehow, and also, the rare was pretty soft and the baked part was harder than some I've had, so I was really not appreciating the texture and construction of this one. However, the taste was still good, so this counts as good cake.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same of the last one, which was Savarin Pêche Melba, a baba with a peach liquor and white wine based syrup, a raspberry glazing, some peach confit, vanilla cream, I think accepted with baked white chocolate somewhere, though I'm not sure where, and uncredited almond slices. This was just too dry for me and did not have much taste. Not it was was bad as sponge goes, but what's the point of a dry baba?

Akane: Specialisté

Could leave home until about 2 pm, so I went some place new (relative to blogging), which means that they would have something that I haven't had. I cycled, because it was above 30 degC, though cloudy. It's about 12 km, so not so far, in Ota-ku. Unfortunately, this south area remains somewhere that I never need to go. There were other customers buying a smoothie before me and cookies after me (and something else in a bag that I suppose could have been a cake). I got the "Specialisté", which is a rare cheese cake with a little pineapple and I think the other fruit was peach. The cake is unique, as it was much closer to soft cheese than any cake I've ever had before (versus a cheese mousse), sort of gelatinous in a cheese-like way. Also, it looks like it has a mini-macaron on top, but it was actually an unexpectedly hard cookie. Or maybe it was normal rare cheese cake that sat around too long, but it seems unlikely that they are that incompetent, as they've stayed open for a number of years now.

The fruit was nice and the cheesecake did not taste bad but not good, so I'll just label it okay. I regret not getting something else, though the choices of cake were few and not exciting: traditional gateau chocolate, a mousse/cream chocolate cake that looked promising but was banana (never a good sign), and a Mont-Blanc. Didn't notice a shortcake, to fill out the standards, but maybe it was sold out.

Frédéric Cassel: Saint Honoré Pêche de Vigne

Pretty hot again today and I forgot my water, so in running to Ginza, I went underground at the main scramble and walked to the Mitsukoshi, but
still was close to 9 km/h for that 5+ km. Walking back, I came out in Hibiya Park so that I could get a drink in the park, so it was 4+ km back at 8 km/h (uphill).

The cake was the seasonal Saint Honoré-Pêche de Vigne, which refers to some sort of peach/nectarine. It's fairly mild, but certainly suitable for summer. It was the usual excellent cake from them. This month specials in cake cover both July and August, so I'll probably run out of new cakes before I get them caught up, but that's fine. There were still a couple more today and maybe there will be something different next month.

Morning: walking to Paris S'éveille for Peche Verveine and Gâteau Basque

Walked to Paris S'éveille. I figured I could do the round trip at 5 km/h or one-way at 6 km/h, but settled for 1.5 of the way at 5.5 km/h (16 km total), which puts me exactly at my target budget for walking, but I'll need to rest tomorrow, which I should anyway after a long day today.

At Paris S'éveille, I got a Gâteau Basque for 450 yen, which I ate almost immediately, and a Peche Verveine (?) for 600 yen, which I took by train to Shibuya (where you have to switch lines) and then walked from there home (well, the 100 yen food shop first).

The Gâteau Basque, which is not fresh cake, so I treat it as a pastry, was good but nothing special. This one was just pastry cream as filling (which is custard) rather than fruit.

The peach doom didn't travel well. I really should have gotten the Fondant (really: I need some excuse to go back and get the Fondant). It's sort of like somewhat gelatinized peach sauce on top of, I'm not sure what, a smaller cream dome on a thin spongy cake base. It was good, but I'd rather have good peach jam on an English muffin.

So this bumps Paris S'éveille from "Great" = "Must try every one" status, leaving just four great shops: Jean Paul Hevin, which has the all-chocolate thing going for it, as well as lots of great cakes, Frédéric Cassel, which limits its variations, Henri le Roux, which has only four cakes, only one of which is definitively a cake (the other three are a couple pie-type pastries and a mousse), and Dalloyau, which is just barely hanging in there which its variations as I sample the last least-promising cakes. I've already calculated what the 9 semi-great shops from among the "Excellent" ones are, but I'll continue filling out the third cake from each of "Excellent?" category shops before I make the split. I've got about 5 more of those to visit.

Tried a picture of the shop and one of a temple, neither of which I was happy with. Frankly, there's so much glare, I can barely tell what I'm taking of picture with when I use my phone. Might upgrade to a smart phone, which might involve a better camera, but I should probably just take more shots to sort through and think harder about the framing and lighting (I least thought enough to avoid a worse picture in each case).

(Thursday) Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Pêches

7 km running at 7'-8'/km pace, w. 1:4 walking, okay, except pauses about the same as intersection stops, so timing not really needed for cake running.

Tendinitis in left hand, very bad. Must do research: doctor's electric current treatment, suspicious.

Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Pêches @ 648 yen.  Excellent inspiration (monthly special).  Weak, thin, hard shell holds shape of mascarpone cream. Delirious (red/Western) peach, also little unknown red fruit (raspberry?) filling.

Friday: Clover at Isetan

Friday's cake was from Clover. My timing was terrible, but then I suppose everywhere is busy on Friday. Usually I skip that day, but I skipped Tuesday and Thursday since I took Monday off and had cake.

The cake is supposedly a Isetan exclusive, one of a series of "Mini Hearts", Mini Heart Peach, probably for 540 yen, though I can't remember. This is peach mousse with vanilla cream and the most memorable features. One nice thing about Clover is that they have a card with schematics, so I knew the strawberry one had coconut mousse and went for the peach. And it was definitely really good, but not really what I'm looking for. So one fewer "excellent?" shop to keep track of.

Shopping and Toshi Yoroizuka: Baba and Momontelimar

This time we arrived at Toshi Yoroizuka at 4 pm and immediately gave up getting into the bar. Instead we got the Baba for 530 and Momontelimar for 550.

The Baba was a baba, and packed a reasonable alcoholic punch. It might be great. I'm not the one who usually orders this, but I had half. That's a fig on top, I think.








According to the write up, the Momontelimar is a traditional France desert which, in keeping with the "momo" (Japanese for peach) part apparently, the shop has made with peach in the form of mousse, compote, and sauce. It has it's own Youtube video, but I really can't see the need. It wasn't bad but not exciting. Yesterday's lemon worked out better, frankly. I need a little more zing.

Ginza run to Dalloyau: Douceur de Peche

Today was a normal run to Ginza. Still not so many people along the moat run portion, so maybe people are on vacation in August. This time I got the Douceur de Peche, which is complex. There is shortbread as a base, fromage blanc mousse and peach slice gel around it. There is also a lemon flavored biscuit underneath everything, and vanilla icing on the outside. The outer layer was a little more gel than I like, but for the season, I did not have trouble with it. Great cake from a great shop, so I keep going back. But why the raspberry on top? Seems designed to throw you off.

Homemade peach tart

Wanted to try a tart that was a butter tart (in this case, each parts butter and almond pieces) as the base. The plan was to pile the peaches on just one, but Japanese peaches are difficult (they stay stuck to the pit, and you have to just cut off pieces), so it was hard to get nice stackable pieces and I chickened out and spread them around (the filling was fairly fluid when added, so I was worried about overflow). One of the not full of peaches ones uses an oil crust and one uses butter (as in the full one). Not shown, when they cooled, I added apricot jam. The end result was okay but did not seem worth the trouble. I'm hoping that I like the oil crust okay (from my mom's recipe), because butter is a lot of work (not just to handle, but to obtain: butter shortage) and frankly it's nothing special. I can see now why some other tart shells add so much sugar, just to make it more interesting, but I'd rather find some other way to flavor it, if that's necessary. In this recipe, you back the crust first and then back and filling and the peach topping in it. This made the top part of the filling a little mushy from the peaches, which I should have expected but did not.

Monday (holiday): baking at home

I prepared a run course, but slept in instead, which is fine: in general, I don't away sleep so well, so catching up is good and I found myself quite exhausted Monday. I completed the 14 cm peach rum custard tart, which was good but messy (thus, I was forced to eat all of it at once).

The other project was to try to follow my mother's cheese pie recipe exactly, which is a matching problem: cheese comes in 200 g, not 8 oz, evaporated milk comes in 170 ml, not 1/2 cup, and I use 14 cm tart forms instead of a whatever size the pie recipe calls for. At least the eggs match up reasonably well with the can of milk (3 eggs to 1 can). I can deal with leftover cheese more easily. As you can see, the confection oven is a little strong for them, even reducing the cook time 10%. I did not roll out the dough well and/or prepare enough dough, so the crusts had some gaps that leaked, so actually I not only wasted some fill but had leftover, so I've got two more in the oven now. And this time, I got the timing on the dough right (put the dough balls in the frig too long, but waited for them to soften on the counter to the right consistency to be able to roll them out well). However, this time I'm trying baking the crust together with the filling rather than double baking. I know that works with an oil crust, but these are butter crusts, with a lot more sugar (too much I decided, so I reduced from the minimum 30 g to 20 g). Anyway, I froze 3 1/2 of these and tried a piece of one, and it was good except that I thought to taste the cheese more, I needed to decrease the sugar.