Some of you may remember a couple of months ago, when I was looking for cake recipes for Thanksgiving. I discovered the existence of Baumkuchen then, a cake traditionally cooked on a spit, where you coat it with layers of batter so you end up, when you remove the spit, with a cylindrical cake composed of layers of cake like tree rings.

I had never heard of it before…and it turns out it’s a very popular thing in Japan.

We were rushing through Tokyo Station the first day we arrived and saw a small store with Baumkuchen cooking in the window. We decided we’d get some the next day.

December 27th dawns and we head to the station…and can’t find that shop. We find a counter in Daimaru, one if the department stores at the station, but the line to get cake is so long they’ve literally roped it off with velvet ropes.

So we decide to get it when we get back to Tokyo. We see it in several other places as we travel, and once get a prepackaged piece, but it tastes like average pound cake.

We get back to Tokyo and spot the store again as we’re rushing from place to pace, but have enough presence of mind to note that it’s located near the pink pillar close to the Yaesu Central exit.

Last night we finally stopped. They had a package that had two pieces, regulate and “mont,” which was a piece cut from a cake that had been baked with ridges in the exterior.

Here’s a pic after I’d cut the pieces in half so we could each try each one, and I’d already started eating the regular one.

It still tastes like pound cake…very,very good pound cake. Not quite as dense as that, but not fluffy like a box cake, either. The mont cake had an exterior that was sugary and a bit crustier than the regular one.

A++ Would eat again.