Genoise (Rose)

I put the Rose in parenthesis since the cake is named after the rose tube pan (and Rose, the author too I bet!) and I didn't bake my genoise in that pan. If only I knew the name of my tube pan, then I could call it Genoise [insert name of tube pan here].* Oh well. You get the point.

June 27, 2010
Name of Cake: A Giant Genoise
Occasion: HCB
Constitutents: Literally, a giant genoise with triple sec syrup.

I may be having not-so-great luck baking butter- and cheese-cakes in my new apartment's oven, but I seem to be having great luck baking genoise cakes. For the first time, in like, ever!

And now, a public service announcement.

For anyone needing proof that egg yolks and egg whites aren't what they used to be, please see the following:

The recipe calls for 5 large eggs, totaling 250 grams. 150 of those grams would be egg whites, and 100 of those grams therefore would be yolks.

Here's how many large egg yolks it took for me to make 100 grams:

See that? Six egg yolks. Usually I need about 2/3 more yolk, but this time I needed pretty much a whole extra yolk.

And for egg whites, 6 large egg whites was about 57 grams too much, which is almost equivalent to the weight of two large egg whites (30 grams each).

So if you do the math, for the equivalent weight of 5 large eggs, I needed 6 actual large egg yolks and just a little more than 4 actual large egg whites.

Now, this may be just a strange problem with the cage free eggs the various brands around Portland get from their suppliers, but I'm just saying. Take the time, next time you bake, to weigh your yolks and whites and see what you get. I would love to hear your results!

Back to cake.

Beautiful well-beaten eggs and sugar. The recipe says 6 minutes, I let it go for 7 just in case.

Ready for the oven.

Just out of the oven.

I have two things to confess:

1. I have been too cheap to buy more Baker's Joy, so before I moved I made myself a batch of Baker's Grease. Not as poetic as Joy, but Grease has been working pretty darn well. It gives the cakes a nice, shiny, tight crust and releases the cake well. There is a lot more human error however, as the Grease needs to be brushed into the pans. I brushed my bundt pan very liberally which made the cake easy to release, but alas, the very tops of several of the points remained in the cake pan. I'm ok with that.

Just unmolded.

2. I didn't have enough cornstarch so I decided to substitute with potato starch flour, of which I have quite a bit. I thought about sweet rice flour, after reading Kate's inspired blog post about starch gelatinazation, but decided to stick close to cornstarch's profile just in case. This also turned out great. No grainy or gritty texture or off flavor, at least not that I or the Jellos noticed. So if you want to bake this genoise but don't have any cornstarch and don't want to go to the store, pull out your potato starch flour and get to it. (Provided you don't have to go to the store to get that either, I guess.)

Another thing I have noticed? If Rose says to let the cake sit for 24 hours, I need to let mine sit for 48 hours to get the same results. Tonight, at 24 hours, the cake was very moist and light and delicious, but tomorrow I bet the cake's moisture will be even more evened out. (Which it is, just a hair.)

And 24 hours later.

Cabbage felt this was a nice light alternative to all of our other recent cake adventures. Cookie loves a good sponge cake and loved everything about it. I thought it was a great, light cake that paired well with super ripe strawberries and whipped cream. I'll admit that I am a butter cake, or even better, a butter AND sour cream cake person but this genoise was wonderful. It definitely isn't something I'd eat on it's own, but with whipped cream and farm fresh berries, it is perfect.

Today's breakfast! (We ate all the strawberries last night, had to break into the raspberries.)

Also, as much as I am not enamored with my tube pan, it does make for fun photos!

* UPDATE: Hey everyone! I found my cake pan online! It is the Wilton Dimensions® Cascade Pan! So I guess this cake would be called the Genoise Wilton Dimensions® Cascade. Hmm. Let's call it the Genoise Cascade for short.