Cake-off: "Le Suprême" over "Miroir Cassis"

Saturday, I did a two-part run, first up to Aigre-Douce to get Miroir Cassis, that I have an ambiguous "great" report on, so I wanted to resolve that. I had forgotten how poorly their bags fix their boxes, so that it's impossible to keep them level. To make matters worse, they put cool packs both inside and outside the box, both on the back, so it would take a pretty well fitted bag to keep it from flipping over. Needless to say, it was pretty banged up from trip home, which was longer than necessary. Next time (I'm planning to go back Thursday), I'm taking a route that sticks to main (straight and relatively level) and bring a good back that I can repack in, as needed. This was about 11 km, with slightly more of that 10 km/h versus 9 km/h.

The second run was to Paris S'éveille for Le Suprême. This has blueberry and chocolate, so I wasn't sure what to match it with anyway, which was why I paired it up with Miroir Cassis, which is at least fruit. This is a mousse cake, though, and they advised me to get it home within 1 hour, which running wasn't going to accomplish to I used the train. At least I saved myself the cost of the sports drink that I would have needed to run back, though the front chocolate sheet stuck to the box and broke when I pried it loose. I varied my running route just because I knew I would cycle the next day and most of my route would otherwise be the same as Thurday's, so that added about another kilometer, to make it about 12 km at 10 km/h.

It was a pretty lopsided contest. My original estimation that Miroir Cassis was not great, and I'm not sure that it even qualifies as excellent, though the texture is good, I appreciate the mini macarons, and the fruit taste is nice. But Le Suprême is rich and blue berries provides an uncommon accent. So, in recognition, I also need to get back to Paris S'éveille.

I should also mention that Friday I tried Henri le Roux's Noir Signature tablette bar/tablet, which was definitely excellent, though I'm comparing to months-old imported chocolate from the grocery. I haven't had other chocolatier tablette chocolate for quite awhile.

Aigre-Douce: Miroir Cassis and Canele de Marquet

Had a real run of 12 km, still at a slow speed of almost 7 min/km average, but no problems, so I plan to run again tomorrow, despite making my goal of 20 km for the week today. I worked hard to keep in shape while I couldn't run, so if my right lower-leg tendon is happy, nothing else should give me trouble, although my hips while I was running didn't quite seem used to it toward the end (no problems, though).

I ran to Aigre-Douce, as a great shop that needed further visiting, and got Miroir Cassis for 530 and Canelé de Marquet (the last one, which was somewhat hidden) for 230 yen. Up until the actual time of ordering, I thought that I was going to get the cake next to the cassis one, but suddenly realized that I had misread the name and it was actually something I've already had/blogged, so no time to read the card. I'm counting on memory and a description lifted from Google. I had also already picked out a different baked good before I as a new canelé to try, as well.

The cake was very good, and I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt that it was great, because I can't think of any way to make it better that would not make it a different cake completely. The cassis is in the mousse outside and inside there is lemon panna cotta (cooked cream) and red fruits gelatin. Outside, are what look like macarons to me, although called something different on the blog I was comparing with.

The canelé is different from other ones in being more wet/custardy inside, although not in a bad way. Still, it didn't stand out.

I tried to make canelé today and failed, but not in a discouraging way: they burned. My recipe says 26 min for 20-gram size and 45 minutes for 70 grams, so I went with 40 minutes. My forms are very short compared to regular ones, and I don't know what that implies. The burnt taste is enough that I wouldn't want to give them to anyone else, but not enough to stop me from eating them, so I put the remainder in the freezer so that I at least don't eat them all today. Struggling to decide how many minutes to try next: 35 min or 30 min. I suppose 30 min, since I might theoretically back them back to bake longer if they aren't done, although I'm not sure whether that would work.