Hidemi Sugino · Since 1991
Ambroisie
Ambroisie is the cake with which Hidemi Sugino won the pastry world cup in 1991: a pistachio mousse, a chocolate mousse, a raspberry heart and a joconde sponge under a dark glaze, so delicate that the shop in Kyobashi refuses to box it.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A short, strong coffee, as the salon serves it.
The word means the food of the gods, and the cake is Sugino’s masterpiece: two mousses made with the minimum of gelatine so they barely hold, a sharp raspberry insert to cut the richness, a thin sponge, a mirror glaze. He took it to Lyon in 1991 and won; it has been on his counter every day since, limited in number, sold only to guests who eat it in the salon within minutes.
The Ambroisie is the piece Tokyo pastry people plan their mornings around, and the reason the guide calls Sugino the master of the mousse.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- Joconde sponge: 2 eggs, 70 g ground almonds, 70 g icing sugar, 20 g flour, 2 whites, 20 g sugar
- Pistachio mousse: 150 ml milk, 2 yolks, 40 g sugar, 40 g pistachio paste, 2 sheets gelatine, 150 ml whipped cream
- Chocolate mousse: 120 g dark chocolate, 1 yolk, 1 sheet gelatine, 150 ml whipped cream
- 150 g raspberry purée, 20 g sugar, 1 sheet gelatine
- Dark chocolate glaze
Method
- Bake a thin joconde sponge and cut discs to fit 7 cm rings.
- Set the raspberry purée with sugar and gelatine in small discs; freeze.
- Make the pistachio mousse: a custard with milk, yolks, sugar and pistachio, gelatine dissolved, cooled and folded with cream. Pour half into the rings on the sponge, add the raspberry disc, freeze.
- Make the chocolate mousse with melted chocolate, the yolk, dissolved gelatine and cream; fill the rings to the top, freeze.
- Unmould, glaze with dark chocolate glaze, thaw two hours in the fridge and eat within the hour of taking it out.
Where to taste it
The original Ambroisie
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