Caramels aux beurre salé -- Tokyo Version

Three years ago, in Paris, I bought salted butter caramels, a specialty of Normandy and Bretagne. They're chewy, or if they're made and eaten fresh, literally melt on your tongue. The sweetness and saltness are just heavenly, for those of you who have been lucky to try them.

Anyhow: the Japanese have always loved caramel (or at least for the last fifty years or so?), but only recently has salted caramels been on the menus here and there.

In Isetan in Shinjuku, there are not one, but TWO places, that sell caramels. One of them, Henri Le Roux (incidentally the same brand that I bought in Paris, at EUR0,70 a piece (110 yen)) sells them by the box of 10 at a rich 1,575 yen! Incredible! Would you rather have a box of Godiva chocolates, two bowls of ramen, or ten caramels!

Just a month ago, at a Hokkaido fair in one of the department stores, several vendors came selling caramels made with creamy Hokkaido milk and refrigerated (so unstable they are at if you left them out at room temperature during the hot September you would be left with a complete mess). Even these caramels were 840 yen for 10.

Anyhow, you can imagine how mainstream it's gone when you see today's photos: salted caramel bun, sold at, of all places, Lawson convenience store in the station where I get off to go to work. At 110 yen it's not cheap, but I wanted to try it once, for the record. And here it is: brown bread the consistency of a hamburger or hot dog bun on the outside (similar to what the Japanese I think call "koppe pan"), with a butter caramel paste on the inside (stabilized with preservatives but neverthless just the right sweetness).

It was nice to try it once, but I think next time, just so that I don't go hungry, I'll go for a couple pieces of oden ...


=====

LINKS
1)
Salted caramel makers from Hokkaido
-Naganuma　（あいすの家）
-Hokkaido Grand Hotel


2)
Henri Le Roux

Japanese home page -- fancy


French/English home page -- simple unpretentious layout