Tags
baking, cake, food, genoise, strawberry
I chalk up this particular génoise recipe as a learning experience. A very tasty lesson in the art of mixing up and folding a fussy sponge cake.
You can find the recipe here at this week’s hosts: Sophia’s Sweets and Think, Love, Sleep, Dine.
A génoise is a whole egg sponge cake that uses air suspended in the batter to give volume to the cake. So no leavening agents are used like baking powder. It’s dry and often soaked in syrups or liqueurs. Génoise is a classic and the foundation of much French patisserie. For a fledgling baker like myself it’s tricky. Very, very tricky.
I watched this video with Julia Child and Flo Braker making a génoise several times before I even began the process. I tried to follow their steps closely. This was my first mistake. I am neither Julia Child nor Flo Braker.
The basic procedure for this recipe is to take 4 room temperature eggs (in a more classic génoise you would heat them) and combine them with sugar and whip it in your stand mixer until it is tripled in volume. You want it to be able to lift the whisk and have the mixture fall back into the bowl in a ribbon that rests on the surface about 10 seconds. This is known as the “ribbon stage.” THIS IS IMPORTANT! If you don’t properly mix in enough air here your finished cake will not have the height you want. I thought I accomplished this but looking back I think I would have mixed mine even longer and maybe at a higher speed.
The next step (eek! I’m nervous just thinking about it) is to fold in some sifted cake flour with a small amount of sugar and salt in three additions. I followed the Julia video from above and just kind of dumped in each of these flour additions. This was a mistake on my part! I have since talked to my helpful TWD bloggers and learned I should have instead SIFTED the flour over the beaten eggs. Dumping it in caused it to sink to the bottom (making it hard to fold in and deflating my whipped eggs) which was one of the reasons my génoise was less than perfect. I should also mention that my husband called me from a fishing trip while I was folding the flour in. I gave him an earful later for picking this moment to tell me he was having a great time.
The last and most critical moment for this fragile whipped egg batter is mixing 1 cup of the batter with some melted butter then folding this mixture in the whipped eggs and flour. You don’t want to deflate the whipped eggs so you have to delicately mix in the butter to the rest of the batter. The butter should be melted, but not warm.
You pour the batter into a 8-inch pan and use a spatula to smooth it out and slightly raise up the sides. Then bake for around 25-27 minutes in a 350 degrees F. oven.
My cake was only about 1 1/4 inch tall when finished, surely not the height it was supposed to be. I cut it into two layers instead of three. The bottom layer had a slightly doughy texture because the flour sunk to the bottom when I dumped it in and was probably never fully folded in. Next time I will whip like crazy to make sure I achieve the ribbon stage and sift the flour into the whipped eggs instead of dumping it in.
Here’s the best part though: I made the strawberry filling and heavy cream icing, filled and decorated my génoise and served it to my family. And it was delicious!! Not ready for a French Patisserie. . .but a fantastic dessert nonetheless.
Making it even more special was the fact that we had just returned from a local strawberry U-Pick farm with a large haul of strawberries.
I used some of them for the filling and decoration. Freshly picked strawberries are the best! They helped cover up any small flaws my cake had.
I am already thinking about the next time I attempt this recipe and have found comfort in this post by Rose Levy Beranbaum on her recent failed génoise.
If you have any additional génoise tips please share them with me!
lvaletutto said:
Thanks for the helpful tips on making this type of cake. I’m glad you revealed some of the mistakes you made. If everyone only writes about their successes then it wouldn’t be as informative and helpful as your post is. At least your cake looks and, as you can testify to, tastes great!
Baker on the Rise said:
I am still learning a lot about baking with each new recipe I attempt. I am happy to share the good and the bad!
Pray Cook Blog aka My Daily Bread Body and Soul said:
I like your post and descriptions. I should have re-sifted the flour as I folded. Next time … Nice baking with you, Catherine at http://www.praycookblog.com
Baker on the Rise said:
Thank you! At least we are figuring out what to do better next time 🙂
miki said:
beautiful!
Baker on the Rise said:
Thank you!
alwaysaddmorebutter said:
Your cake looks beautiful and you had a much more mature reaction to your genoise problems than I did. There was some swearing going on over here when I saw how pancake-y my little cake turned out to be. Thanks for putting the link to that post – I’m going to go read it now and try to feel better about my sad cake 🙂
Baker on the Rise said:
Ha, ha, ha. I’m glad I was not the only one!
sanyaliving said:
Your cake looks great!
Freshly picked strawberries! I’m jealous, it’s winter here in Australia.
Baker on the Rise said:
Thank you! I am doing my best to enjoy summer here 🙂
Paula Kelly-Bourque (@VanillaBeanBake) said:
Your cake must have been wonderful with all the fresh strawberries! This was a wonderful post and I enjoyed learning all the lessons that you took away from this recipe. Don’t know if I’m as daring as you however and it will most likely be a long time before I attempt to make a genoise!
Baker on the Rise said:
Thank you! I don’t mind taking a chance on a difficult recipe in the kitchen. That’s when I learn the most! I say go for it if it interests you 🙂
Liz said:
enjoyed your narrative. It’s fun to learn about the process as well as see the (delish and gorgeous) result:-)
Baker on the Rise said:
Thanks! I had fun too!!
girlinafoodfrenzy said:
Even better that your classic cake celebrated all those wonderful, seasonal ingredients you picked yourself!
Baker on the Rise said:
It made it extra special 🙂
zestybeandog said:
What a fun day at the farm! 🙂
Baker on the Rise said:
We thought so! I always end up picking more strawberries than I really need. It is hard to stop!
Baking is my Zen said:
Your cake looks beautifully decorated. Nice post on the tips for making the cake. When I bake, anyone in my vicinity is lovingly escorted out of the kitchen! 🙂 Especially if they are not helping me bake…I’ll check out Rose B’s link. Thanks!
~ Carmen
http://bakingismyzen.wordpress.com/
Baker on the Rise said:
Thank you! In a perfect world that would be nice but my kitchen is open to my family room and with a 2 year old, a 5 year old, and a 7 year old someone is always trying to get in on the action!
stirandstitch said:
sounds like a nail-biter of a recipe! your cake looks delicious and beautiful 🙂
thetoastedsprinkle said:
I love your little decorative swirls. Your cake looks fabulous, so happy for you that you pulled it off. I’ve made sponge cake before but this one was a beast for me. Oh well, i still want to try it again, and I want to soak the layers in orange liquor.
calmamaddg106 said:
Oh my goodness, your cake looks lovely! I’m so glad that we are trying things we may have not made. I too had my young boys getting into the mix!–added pressure right there! I’m waiting for my berries right now and I’ll post my photos in just a bit!
yummychunklet said:
Great call on slicing the cake layer in half. I’ll do that next time as well.
Ckay said:
The best price is our family loving our cakes (even if they don’t turn out like the one in the books – but does it really matter?).
Your cake is beautiful.
Cher said:
Your cake came out beautifully.
It was a bit of a fussy dessert, but the family did love it – which is what really matters, right?
Marlise said:
Love the family picking picture. Strawberry season ended last month here so I was left with the supermarket ones. But I have thought ahead and put some blueberries in the freezer now because I know they will not be available at the end of July for the Blueberry Nectarine Pie. Very pretty cake and nice icing/piping. Great job!
Melissa said:
It looks beautiful! Thanks for the tip about sifting the flour. Mine kept clumping in the batter as well. I feel like this was one of the trickier recipes so far.
breaddivas said:
Funny, I found comfort in that same post by Rose Levy Beranbaum… after I made my cake. I was very nervous too, but happily, I think we both survived. Great Post!
Marilyn said:
Well, your cake looks beautiful on the outside and delicious on the inside. And I can’t think of anything better than going to a strawberry farm this time of year.
guineapigfood said:
Nice job on your cake as well! Looks so cute with the smaller round strawberries from the u-pick… Can’t wait until ours ripen!
Gracie ~ Food Fascination said:
your cake is beautiful!!!
Amy said:
Hey, thanks for the follow, you’ve got some really lovely recipes! Yum! 🙂
jennrag said:
Hope it’s okay with you that I found solace in your post – you are such an expert baker, I assumed you never had any problems with these recipes:)
Amy said:
Hey! I nominated you for a very well deserved Versatile Blogger award.
Check it out here: http://snazzybiscuits.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/raspberry-lemonade/
Well done!
Amy x
Alice said:
Your little swirls on top make me smile! 🙂
The directions say to sift the flour again, over the batter when you are ready to fold the flour in… I did it (painstakingly) slowly, making sure not to sift too much in there or flour will ball up and sink (which happened a little…) but once you get the hang of it, its not too terrible and going slowly helps you keep all the air in the batter that you spent all that time whipping in. 🙂 I’m sure you will improve your methods next time – thats what it’s all about after all!
Cathleen said:
Beautiful decoration!