Frédéric Cassel, Gateau Halloween

Went to Frédéric Cassel for cake, since they are my top choice of shops having new cakes (though this was the only one, and its only early October). I still need to sort out some overlap between quite fine and exceptional and exceptional and quite exceptional shops (and longer term, the overlap between quite exceptional and superb, though I'm already 5 cakes ahead on Origines Cacao along those lines), but not today. Anyway, I was looking for a different cake, but maybe it's already out of the line-up (no end date was given in the posting). I ended up getting Gateau Halloween, without very high expectations (holiday theme cakes tend not to be the best) but trusting Frédéric Cassel not to give me bad cake. I went there running, by the way, and ran back, as the rain is still light (the heavy rain warning because of the approaching typhoon is still 24 hours away). The cake is mostly kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) on top, a layer of rum and raisin, and a brownie base. Definitely good and probably relatively healthy.

Tadashi Yanagi, La Deux Chocolat

Monday, they told me my arm was not broken (no surprise) and otherwise just gave me drugs and told me to come back to reception if I want more. Actually, I have the same leftover drugs from previous visits for other ailments. Doctors, often not very helpful, and/or sprains, not getting the respect that they should, or so I've heard, so I'm going to try to be careful even once the pain subsides.

In the evening, I went back to Tadashi Yanagi for a third cake, La Deux Chcolat (I'm interpreting). This is a brownie under chocolate mousse with orange (I think; they have dozen of cakes on their website, but not this one). I was not optimistic really. It has structural advantages, but a hard brownie (best as a cake base) is not really a good brownie, so I've yet to have this type of cake work out. It was still good, but that's all. With two excellent cakes and one good, Tadashi Yanagi seems to be quite good, and so three cakes is enough for at least a year.

Lindt: Montreux

Got a second cake from Lindt, in North Aoyama and then traced Omotesandou Doori on the older route minus a loop and missing one turn and then made a second try in the future Tougou Shrine and SDA Tokyo Central Church neighborhood. The shrine is fine, but without backtracking, there's no avoiding crowds visiting the church because it's behind the Meiji Doori Omotesandou intersection, which is usually going to be too crowded fro running. I started running faster than recently but of course was slowed down in Harajuku carring cake. I walked the last 800 m or so, as I had already run 61 minutes.

The cake was Montreux, which is a pecan brownie base with a layer of caramel chocolate mousse (though a pretty thick one) with mascarpone cheese flavored with vanilla. The vanilla cheese part is definitely good, but the rest drags it down. Not sure that a brownie is every going to work for me as a cake base, but this certainly does. I'm going to be generous and say it was at least good (rather than just okay), but there's no huge hurry for the third cake.

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.

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 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.

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.