From today until Sunday (April 21st), Mitsuwa Marketplace is holding their Spring Sweets Fair. (I posted about Mitsuwa a while ago--you can read the post here). I came today to post about this event early, but also to take advantage of the free shuttle service from Port Authority on Thursdays.
My boyfriend, who has been to a previous Spring Sweets Fair in southern California, had warned me that this wasn't going to be a big fair like the ones Mitsuwa usually does, and I said whatever. And he was right (he's always right); it's really just a few extra refrigeration units in a far corner of the supermarket, but it's packed with stuff.
Baum kuchen is a pretty simple item: vanilla cake with lots of layers in the shape of a wheel, with a donut hole in the center. I guess it's technically mille crepe, but you can't easily peel back each layer, which is the fun part of eating mille crepe. This thing is huge--I took a picture of it with my hand to compare the size. It's super good. So light and airy, with a distinct vanilla flavor. It's also $5, which makes it one of the better bargains in the display, considering how much cake you're getting.
Next I got the jumbo cream puff (there's only one size). I just wanted to point out that all the desserts in this display are sold very much as supermarket items, and not really as ready-to-eat sweets. The cream puff is frozen, and the swiss rolls are vacuum packaged. I suppose you could eat a frozen cream puff and pretend it's ice cream inside, though. Either way, the cream puff itself is just okay; the puff is light and airy, but the cream was very bland.
My last item from the fair were the green tea-flavored swiss roll cakes. They have two kinds: one that's long, and one that has four already-sliced cakes. I assumed they were the same thing, so I got the cheaper one. They are quite nice; you can't go wrong with cake, green tea, and cream.
In keeping with the dessert theme, I also tried some from the food court. I got a small box of six macarons and a vanilla cream puff. The macarons were no good; I'm talking about soft shells and very bland fillings. Each small box contained chocolate, white chocolate, apricot, lemon, raspberry, and pistachio--very safe flavors for macarons--but I just found myself taking one bite out of each one and setting it down. However, I did like the cream puff. The puff was okay--not particularly moist--but the cream was what made it for me. It had a really rich, saturated vanilla flavor and was so light in texture. It's not the best cream puff I've ever had, but it's nice when you want a lighter dessert.
Overall, I recommend the baum kuchen and the green tea swiss roll cakes. However, the display didn't have the most unique desserts (they also had items like tiramisu and soft cheese cake), so it's not really the place to try new things.
Mitsuwa holds these kinds of food fairs every few months; you can keep up with their seasonal events at their website here.
