Kyo Baum [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Kyo Baum
Address: 248 Gionmachi Kitagawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyōto
Website: https://pastry-shop-434.business.site/
Style: Baumkuchen, Japanese 
Price: $$$ 

The dessert of the moment, at least on this side of the Pacific, seems to be baumkuchen: German "tree cake" that's slowly baked on a rotating spindle, with one layer of dough being gradually added onto another to create the look of tree rings. Baumkuchen are indeed everywhere; they even come factory-packaged and can be bought in convenience stores!

 Taking it to a more elegant level is Kyo Baum, a Kyoto pastry shop that seemed to be all the rage while I was there. In any crowded place, you were bound to encounter someone touting the distinctively branded bag. Like most Japanese pastry/sweet shops, everything available for purchase is already packed in pretty boxes and are stacked in piles throughout the store. Individual portions are not possible, nor is it possible to get anything freshly packed. In addition to those famous baumkuchen - sold in two sizes - Kyo Baum also sells matcha ice cream desserts, matcha cookies and one or two additional, multi-pack matcha treats. It wouldn't be "Kyo" without the matcha, I suppose.

The baumkuchen (1166 yen for the 3.5 cm) consists of four different layers: one soy milk cake layer surrounded by two layers of matcha cake with a thick matcha glaze along the outside. It certainly looks lovely and unpacking it from its air-tight bag gives you a yummy scent blast of matcha.

The texture is very spongy - far more spongy and a lot less dense than traditional baumkuchen. Despite that lovely aroma, the cake itself (besides the thick, koicha-like glaze) didn't really have much matcha taste. Actually, it didn't have much taste at all.

Most of all, however, I couldn't get rid of that pre-packed impression. With just two locations in Kyoto, theoretically it shouldn't taste commercial... but it did. This was a grand Cake Tour finale, a farewell to Japan treat and one I'd been looking forward to those entire three weeks and it just didn't make the cut.

Rating: **1/2