Seasonal Cakes ケーキ

A visit to Tokyo will always be wasted without walking through its department floors for the delicious food. Be it savoury or sweet, one can be amazed by the selection if one has not seen it before. If you are on a free and easy, please try to go to the basement floors of the department stores.

Alexia アレクシア

Layers of crispy millefeuille sandwiched with custard cream and strawberry jam. Topped with crunchy pistachio and caramelized almonds. The layer below the nuts is actually some sticky florentine-like layer. The millefeuille might not be the most crispy one as the layers in contact with the custard is slightly soft but the impressive part comes from the caramelised nuts as it is really crunchy yet gives a bittersweet aftertaste.

I always like how they describe the cake. It is so detailed and makes it seems as though so much effort has been put into each patisserie.

Federico 

Bittersweet chocolate from France mixed together with Italy's milk chocolate, hidden with a pistachio beurre (buttercream) centre and framboise jam. The base is made up of crunchy royaltine and gianduja chocolate sponge.

The gianduja chocolate sponge layer was slightly dry but the mousse was velvety and sweet. It is not common for chef to mix chocolate of different country origin in a single cake. The pistachio centre had a surprise sour taste that makes it easy to be mistaken as lime.

Maple & Pumpkin Pudding

topped with creme chantily and maple jelly.

Though it is named a pudding, it is not truly as soft as the usual chilled milk puddings as this version is baked from the oven. Hence, the pudding's texture is denser but yet still smooth as always, The sweetness is just right However, the base is not very crumbly.

Giotto 
Odakyu Basement 2 , Shinjuku
For more shop info: http://www.plaisir-co.com/shop-pla02.html

Wittamer's Chocolat Croque Bar : Caramel Cafe Flavour 

This is one of the four croque bars introduced this season by Wittamer. Also available in other flavours like mango, chocolate and strawberry.

Not the cake pop that we get but a really more refined version. This is an outer layer of crunchy caramel chocolate nuts coating, filled with very light airy mousse and just one layer of sponge. Though it looks like a magnum ice cream, the taste is less sweet and not too heavy.

Wittamer
http://www.wittamer.jp/index/index.html


Another great find at Takashimaya, Shinjuku is this shop called 梅芯庵 (Bai-shin-an). It belongs to another old traditional shop known as 梅林堂,  which started since 1984. In contrast to its mother shop, this one fuses both western and japanese style in its desserts. 
http://www.baishinan.co.jp/top/baisinan_home.html


This is its latest promotion which features Hokkaido's fresh cream and mascarpone cheese.

Kuromitsu Kinako Milk Pudding 

This milk pudding is not really a milk pudding...as it is extremely light that it no longer has the jelly-like texture. This is more of a very light mousse but this was surprisingly not sweet at all. This was likely to be made not sweet because of the black sugar jelly pudding at the base. An example of using Japanese ingredients once again into something very popular.

Wasanbon Mousse 和三盆のムース

Wasanbon is a special type of sugar usually found in Japanese traditional sweets. But this time round, it has been made into mousse and the taste is really hard to be described. The sweetness is very mild.

梅芯庵 Baishinan
Takashimaya Basement 
for other outlets: http://www.baishinan.co.jp/