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.