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Bûches de Noël Pistachio Raspberry Strawberry

Bûche de Noël Maestro with red berries by Julien Perrinet

Bûche de Noël Maestro with red berries by Julien Perrinet

 

In the Christmas collection of the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, Julien Perrinet has fused Japanese customs with French pastry culture. He has only been at the hotel for two years and has already changed almost 95% of its repertoire, modernizing most of the recipes and maintaining the most emblematic references of the house.

The star products of this collection are three bûches de Noël, whose names are directly related to the flavors and/or the design. Corsica, in which IPG mandarin oranges from Corsica are combined with chestnuts; Saint Malo, where he not only vindicates the salty caramel of his homeland, Brittany, but also plays with the color white on the outside and black on the inside to emulate the flag of Brittany, and Maestro, which “is actually the name of one kind of strawberry that we use for our red Bûches. So, again, it came naturally”, explains the pastry chef.

Apart from the Christmas logs, a preparation that is highly appreciated by the Japanese and that is a tradition at Park Hyatt is the stollen, both the classic and the chestnut version. This year Perrinet also adds a third more brioche version with a pronounced butter flavor.

His approach for his cutting-edge creations is to focus on flavor and main ingredients, and design something elegant without unnecessary frills. All in all, the purpose is “to provide a lot of pleasure in terms of textures, flavor combinations, and look so that customers find them ‘kawaii’ (pretty and delicate’) at first sight”, he assures.

Next, we share the Bûche Maestro’s recipe, decorated with fresh Amaou strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Perrinet has created a melody of flavors by using strawberry jam, pistachio namelaka cream, and pistachio financier sponge.

buche Maestro by Julien Perrinet