Bûches de Noël Pistachio Raspberry Strawberry

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.

Bûche de Noël Maestro

Berries mousse

1.000 g strawberry puree 100%
300 g raspberry purée 100%
200 g cassis purée 100%
400 g cream (warm)
55 g brown sugar
320 g gelatin mass
1200 g whipped cream
300 g mascarpone

Warm up half of the purees, add gelatin, add the other half of liquid cold purees, add the whipped cream mix with mascarpone.

Strawberry jam

560 g strawberry puree 100%
1,2 g acid citric
16 g cornstarch
28 g sugar
90 g gelatin mass (1/6)
4 g pectin NH

Heat up the puree. Combine the remaining ingredients (except for the gelatin), add to the puree, mix it and cook it as a creme anglaise. Once thickened, remove from the heat and add the gelatin.

Deco chocolat

375 g Strawberry chocolate inspiration
15 g Red Cocoa butter PCB

Melt and combine.

Pistachio viennois sponge

150 g egg yolk
400 g whole fresh eggs
315 g sugar
250 g egg white
100 g sugar
200 g flour violet (Japanese cake flour)
210 g pistachio paste

Egg yolk + fresh egg + sugar in mixer > whip. Make meringue with egg white and sugar. Add meringue in the first mix and then add the flour sieved. Poor the sponge mix on silpat. Bake it in ventilated oven at 230ºC for 5-6 minutes.

Crispy feuillantine pistache

1.000 g pistachio praline
300 g white chocolate Opalys
500 g feuillantine

Melt chocolate to 35°C, add praline and fold in feuillantine, spread on pistachio financier

Praliné pistachio

750 g pistachio nuts (roasted in oven, 12 min at 165c)
250 g sugar
6 g sea salt
60 g pistachio paste Babbi

Cook sugar at 160ºC, poor the nuts, sable and crystalized sugar, cook slowly until caramelization. Once done, Poor on silpat and allow to cold down, once cold, put in robot coupe. Add salt and pate de pistache.