I’m just going to get right to it . . . this Charlotte Cassis is a delight. No, regular readers, your eyes are not deceiving you. I just used an unambiguously positive adjective to describe an Arnaud Larher pastry. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that it is among the finest of all the cassis pastries in Paris.

It is with this piece that the promise of Arnaud Larher has come to life for me. His quaint shop in its quaint neighborhood, with its kind staff, offers this up as the one patisserie in their gamme that I’d go back for again and again. Finer than Mulot’s, finer than Aoki’s, for me this is the yardstick against which all other cassis mousse must be measured.

Breaking it down, we have some violet-colored cassis juice-imbibed biscuit, covered by a giant mound of cassis mousse, surrounding a small block of cassis pâte, and it’s all crowned with a blueberry balanced atop a square of dark chocolate. Oh, and lest I forget, there’s a healthy dose of cassis glaçage covering all by the chocolate garnish. The biscuit was texturally solid – not too chewy and definitely not soggy. Although its flavor was pretty tame, that’s to be expected when it’s competing with as much cassis as one gets in every bite. The cassis mousse was what really reeled me in. I’m at a loss for how to explain it, as fruit mousses are very different from the chocolate variety. It’s a mixture of spongey, oozey, gooey, chewy, and foamy that has to be done “just so”, and Monsier Larher hit the nail on the head. I would love to fill a gigantic pastry bag with it and have someone just pipe it into my mouth; it’s that good. Adding to the superior texture and flavor blast, there was the cassis pâte, which took the flavor intensity to a new realm. The corners of my cheeks are tingling right now just thinking about its acidicly pert deliciousness. Since I’m not a big fan of chocolate as a complement to cassis (cassis to chocolate is another story), I might advise setting the square aside and just savoring the ripe little blueberry. It was a sweet, yet mild, little counterpoint to the force of the cassis one gets to savor in the dome.

I think the secret to the success of this piece is that Monsieur Larher loves to use gelatin, and a command of it is pretty pivotal in a fine cassis mousse. While it might not need to be such a prominent fixture in other pastries, this is where his “desire and opportunity meet”. Maybe Arnaud could expand his fruit mousse offerings even further. I’d certainly be into it.

I mean, really, if Strasbourg can have a patisserie devoted almost entirely to kugelhof, Maison du Kougelhopf (btw – there are like 10 ways to spell that word), then there could be a fruit mousse shop. New York City even has a big store that just sells rice pudding, Rice to Riches. Sometimes it’s all about running with a speciality.

So, yes, next time you find yourself out beyond Sacré Coeur, snag a cassis dome from Arnaud Larher. While you’re there, pick up a bar of chocolate or two. He is well-regarded for his skill with cacao, and I can certainly vouch for its quality.

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