No running

Since yesterday was my long run day and today it hit 35 degrees in Tokyo, no running, although I did some weight training indoors. I might regret it tomorrow, because rain is forecast. I went to Isetan for cake and checked out the Sucreries Nerd counter, but did not get too excited and ended up with just bread from Andersen, including this,

a ricotta cheese lemon pie, which was okay but not as great as I hoped. Next time I'll try the cinnamon bun. I still have a card from Sucreries Nerd, so maybe I'll go by when I run out of other places, since being at Isetan is recommendation enough.

Of course, I still had half a homemade chocolate-topped cheese tart. This time in adding the chocolate, I mixed in a tablespoon of yogurt to break up the crystal so I could cut through it rather than just break it into loose pieces, which worked. Today I added raspberry jam, which also worked. I asked at Jean-Paul Hevin about their sauces the other day, but they are about 3000 yen for 200 g and you ideally should finish the jar within two weeks of  opening it. I decided that 3000 yen was too much for me, so I'd stick to cheaper toppings, at least until I have company.

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.

Sunday without running: Fraoula and Aigre-Douce

It as a rest day, so I was lazy and did not take notes. After other shopping, I went to Fraoula and got (update: bostoc?) the below. The first is salted caramel macarons, although they just seemed like macarons to me. The set was only about 400 yen, which is reasonable. They are slightly smaller than average, but not tiny. I recommend with tea or sharing, since by the third one I was finding them a little too sweet. I wish I could remember what the other thing is. It's from the baked things and is only about 200 yen but is better than most cakes. It involves a lot of eggs. There are almond slices there, but the taste is of maple. Whatever it is, it is great and I get it when I can.

This sad thing is a Charlotte aux (or maybe "de") Framboise. Again, I've demonstrated the futility of trying to use the bicycle basket to carry cake. If I go on a ride, I should just eat where I go. Anyway, there is some raspberry in there, but actually the main part of the center is a light lemon chiboust, or maybe the chiboust is the top part, but that does not seem to match other things I've seen called chiboust in Japan. Anyway, the middle part is semi-frozen, or starts close to that, and then there are some raspberries on the bottom. I'm not that much into Charlotte's, I guess, although I've had ones that used more a biscuit for constructing the ring around the soft middle, which I like better.

This was supposed to be based on my mother's recipe for cheese pie (cake), but I did a major substitution so it doesn't taste like anything I've had before. Also, you're not supposed to brown the top, but I can't see that it's hurt any thing. The inside seems a little soft, if anything, so it's not overcooked. It still tastes good, but I'll try to do it properly next time, as I'd like a firmer texture in the cooked cheese. Also, I should not have used the pie crust (although so delicious with olive oil) recipe that goes with it, since it's definitely a pie crust and I'm using 14 cm tart forms (just bought a third one Saturday: they're expensive). One of these used a leftover tart dough from my custard tart experiments (with only two tart forms), so I'll eventually compare the crusts.

Full disclosure, I also finally failed to resist the cinnamon bun at La Saison near Sanmiyabashi Station. It was as a large cinnamon bun should be (especially if it is 400 yen plus).