Already November!

Time flies so fast! It’s already November. I’ve been always on the run this year, which I can’t handle the situation really well. At least not yet! My desire to master and control this chaotic life is far from the reality; I’m sort of a slave who is trapped in such a small world of going to work and coming back home late at night.

Well that’s enough. I shall catch up with where I last dropped in this blog.

I still create new things in pastry as well as the same old things. Sometimes it comes from a mistake, while the other things are coming from somewhere in my head.

When I feel “My imagination doesn’t go anywhere beyond”, I go out in nature finding some treasures, especially early in the morning. 

Especially, on this route out in the boonies, I usually find naturally adorable things.

Like a cabbage with a heart-shaped hole on one of the leaves.

Like Fall-colored berries and some Oriental plants.

And a snail stretching out to reach its aim. Why not!? We can do the same thing, can't we?

As a result, I created this Entremet cake for the 30^th anniversary of a happily married couple which traveled to Shikoku, one of the four principle islands of Japan. Darn it, I never traveled so far in Japan! But my cake did.

In October, after work, we had a chance to watch the 2^nd largest firework festival in Japan near our shop/restaurant. It was next door neighbor’s front yard where we went to watch such magnificent firework, which lasted for TWO hours!!!

In October, I had a demonstration of how to make a Halloween Macaron (French macaroon) tower and its decoration at the huge department store in Tokyo, the Ikebukuro Seibu.

So, I made many colorful (color-poisoned) Macarons for this event.

Pears are in season now.　I prepare pears in different styles of cooking. Here’s an authentic poached pear in light syrup with white wine, vanilla, bay leaf, and some spices.

It’s a trial version of a Halloween Macaron tower. This is a mini version which can be made easily at home.

In autumn, the Japanese craves for chestnuts. It’s an amazing phenomenon. It’s a seasonal thing which they seriously look for. So, I make this cake called Mont-Blanc which resembles the shape of the famous French-Italian mountain. If you love chestnuts, you would love this!

Another version of chestnuts dessert. Chestnut mousse topped with chocolate mousse. Yum-yum…

This is yet another Mont-Blanc tart which I created. Three-differently-cooked-kinds of chestnuts are used and well-hidden inside. There are chestnuts cooked in Earl-Grey infused syrup inside the almond cream in the tart base. In the top part, under the crème de marron (chestnut cream), there is a block of chestnut mousse covered with rum-flavored crème Chantilly and Earl Grey flavored chestnuts. Also, I placed Shibukawani (chestnuts cooked with its inner skin attached in heavy syrup) all around outside. Everybody loves this.

In Japan, pumpkins come in many different shapes and colors in autumn. I like to use seasonal ingredients in pastry making. Here, I made pumpkin financiers with lightly-burned fermented butter and real pumpkin. The rich and profound flavor of beurre noisette (brown butter) and pumpkin is such a wonderful combination, needless to say.

This year, November is very mild and warm. We can still enjoy outside pleasantly.  It doesn’t seem foliage changes its colors properly this fall. Well, I don’t get used to Japanese winter, so I might as well enjoy the warm late fall.