Afternoon Chocolate Cake

I told my mom I'd make her any cake she wanted for her birthday; she picked Francois Payard's Afternoon Chocolate Cake. I love this cake, except I can never unmold it from the pan. Ah well, she wanted it. In retrospect, I should have used a springform pan for this or lined the sides of the regular cake pan with parchment, not just the bottom. In the end I had to cut the wedges right in the pan and pry them out. It didn't do wonders for the look of the cake but I suppose that doesn't matter as much as the taste, which was still great. It's richly chocolate and buttery with just the faintest hint of saltiness. The texture is more brownie-like than cake like, but slightly drier and more crumbly than a brownie.

Since it was a birthday cake, I decided to do some icing. I made a vanilla cream cheese and mascarpone cream and piped it on the edge of the cake--it was too strong to cover the whole cake with, but as an accent it was perfect!

Happy birthday, mom!