Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Feuilleté over Au Bon Vieux Temps' Pourriture

I followed one cake-off by another for two reasons. The original reason for the plan was because I'll be busy next weekend and I like to keep to one a week. A new reason appears when Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Feuilleté won the previous cake-off, because I don't have any new cakes, or even excellent cakes for a retry, from Jean-Paul Hévin. Also, I'm not sure how long Pourriture will stick around at Au Bon Vieux Temps and I've been waiting for a year for it to appear. I think the fruit is fig, which seems to be in season now, at least as far as cakes goes. 

It was rainy Saturday, which feels fairly redundant for the last few months. At least Sunday was better. I decided that it was rainy less hard than the last time I went out that way, so I didn't bring the big umbrella and ran about two thirds before I decided that I was wet enough and the rain was heavy enough that I wanted to pull out the portable. No problem getting the Pourriture. I came back by train as far as Isetan to get the Longchamp Feuilleté from JPH. I'm afraid the Paris-Brest isn't going to manage a first-round cake-off before it's gone again, but I'll survive that.

I must of been pretty jaded with JPH cakes when I first rated Longchamp Feuilleté as just excellent, because it didn't have any trouble eclipsing the pour Pourriture, which which has cheese and fig to impress me. This was only a second-round cake-off, so it might get a chance for a third round, if it can hang on until the beginning of November. 

Cake-off Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Feuilleté over Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Praliné Noisette

Thursday, I took the afternoon off. It was raining, so I got a haircut rather than immediately run, but I did got to Isetan afterward and of course had no trouble scoring Tuesday's cake, Tarte Infiniment Praliné Noisette from Pierre Hermé, and one of the recently promoted Jean-Paul Hévin cakes, Longchamp Feuilleté. I cake the cake first, after lunch, but did do a 2 hour run in the evening, when the rain had stopped. In terms of quantity, the tart has the obvious advantage and both are great, but Longchamp Feuilleté has that crunch going, and maybe a higher sugar density, along with chocolate, so in the end I have to give it the win, but I'm still happy with the hazelnut tart and hope to get to the pistachio version (only at the mother store) before it ends its run, which is not until December. 

Jean-Paul Hévin, Longchamp Feuilleté

Sunday, I went out a couple more hours by bicycle and picked up photos a new missed places in otherwise finished maps and corrected an order for cake for Tuesday (I keep forgetting to check what I've had before). Then I went out and got Longchamp Feuilleté from Jean-Paul Hévin at Ginza Mitsukoshi. Also, I saw a new pastry a Dalloyau, Boule de Marron I think they were calling it, so I had to get that. On the way to my actual necessary errand for being in the Tokyo Station area, I swung by Toshi Yoroizuka and happily saw that they had a great cake from 2015 in the line-up (and claimed that it would stay in the line-up for the season, i.e., until December), so now I know what I want to do for a cake-off next weekend. I'll have four chances to find something else great, otherwise I'll be running to Ryoura on Saturday, take the train back, and run to maybe to Tokyo Midtown (which is closer than Kyoubashi, where I went today).

Today's cake was fill of good things that I like, dark chocolate mousse and both almond meringue and feuilleté, though the latter made it tend to break up into small chunks, which is a little awkward using a tiny cake fork. Maybe I should use a spoon. I still haven't found a sharp table knife for cutting cake (I assume sharp would be better than a serrated blade). It was excellent cake, though I've rating other of the similar cakes higher; it could be I'm spoiled now or just I liked the simpler versions (I think they were simpler).

The Boule de Marron seemed deflated in that there did not seem to be enough pastry for the amount of chestnut, at least for me, though I'm sure more people would complain if they were cheap with the chestnut. Still, it was good, but it reminds me that I want to get to Clair de Lune again, I hope Wednesday of this week, though for cake this time, not pastry, though a pastry from there on Sunday wouldn't go wrong.

Don't really need my camera in super-wide mode for cake, but I think I've already fixed that now.