As the Yule season approaches, thoughts turn inevitably to cakes and sweetmeats. Homemade is always best, but sometimes expensive cravings arise for the kind of elegant confections that can only be furnished by bespoke chocolatiers and dessert chefs. Here are five of the desserts that hit the sweet spot for me over the past year.
Sadaharu Aoki
Last Christmas, I was too late to order any of the beautiful limited-edition cakes produced by this Paris-based Japanese haute-patissier. So I contented myself with a box of his exquisite tablet bonbons chocolats (¥3,780 per box of 12) coated in acid-brilliant colors with flavors — among them yuzu and wasabi — so intense and lingering that the box could be rationed well into the New Year.
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