Cake-off: Tentation Chocolat vs. Carrément Chocolat

Not a bad cake running day, but still mixed results. First, a little slow. This was deliberate, but I felt afterward that it would have been hard to do otherwise. First I went to Cuoca, where they did not have scrapers for making macarons (I could have checked their website first, but it's somewhat on the way, so why spoil the surprise.) That was about 11 km @ 11.0+ km/h, which was my goal, rather than kill myself doing 12 km/h, which is not something I need on long runs, at least yet. Also, though not painfully sore today, yesterday's speed training was not something I would recommend before the main long run of the week (I was busy this weekend, at least Friday and Saturday, so I ran when the opportunity was there).  From, I went to Au Bon Vieux Temps for the Tentation Chocolat, which is my earliest great cake. I had a back-up plan in case this turned out to be out of season or just something they didn't make anymore, but the staff helped me find it when I asked (I often can't see what's in front of me). Ran into a long train crossing signal (too long not to indicate a problem, so after several minutes, I left the waiting crowds of people and vehicles and ran parallel to the line, since I wanted the shortest route in terms of time, rather than distance) and it resolved itself within another several minutes (I knew I'd eventually at least get to where there was a bridge or tunnel anyway, but the train did finally go past). This was my first trial run of seeing whether I could run a cake like this so far (12+ km), and I wouldn't try it in summer (I might have to use the trains for cake transport then, but then I also don't want to be running super long distances in the worst heat anyway; been there, done that). Thus, I have an excuse to be down around 10 km/h.

Cake survived, though the vibration moved to across it's cardboard base (taped down) to the edge of the box, but it's a pretty solid cake, so no problem, which is good, because then I accidentally flipped it over on its side trying to get it out and had to put it back together. I don't know why they didn't add partitions to keep it in place, which is the normal thing and what they did from the last cake I got there. I might have to specify that it's going to have a rough return home (versus me just eating it in the park).

Next, I ran over to Isetan to get the Carrément Chocolate from Pierre Hermé at Isetan, which was the next great chocolate cake that I blogged. This was also at 10 km/h, though that dropped down to 9 km/h coming back, which I can at least partially blame on more crowded conditions (though right around Isetan, the road is closed to traffic for Sunday during the day.

This was my first try at comparison. I choose two similar cakes, although the Tentation is a mousse cake (a very solid mousse), whereas the Carrément Chocolat is not, though still very moist. Both were great chocolate cakes, which I'm happy about (I imagine that I'm going to find some cakes that I rated as great once that I'm not going to be less impressed with the second time), but I'm disappointed that they were not more different. In the end (and really at the last bites), I decided to go with Carrément Chocolat, as I like the crunch from the bottom layer (though I don't need the gold leaf on top, at all).