The cake project I mentioned at the end of the cured reindeer post has now come to a happy conclusion, and I thought I would write a few lines about it before going to bed. It is already past midnight, and there are a couple of new ideas waiting for tomorrow...
I am aware of having put off baking this cake for a few days out of a subconscious fear of failure. The threat of a flat, sunken cake was in the air from the moment I read the recipe at Joy of Baking. But more of that a little further on.
For a long time I tried to find a good Finnish translation for génoise cake. Sponge cake translates as sokerikakku, "sugar cake", but since this génoise is made without raising agents, sokerikakku is not in my view the right term. As far as I understand, baking powder is always used in a traditional sokerikakku. So from here on I shall speak of génoise, unless somebody knows a better translation and kindly tells me.
As its name says, génoise comes from Genoa in northern Italy, although nowadays I suspect it is thought of mainly as the basic sponge of French pastry cooks. It also differs from sokerikakku in that hot butter is added to the batter. The lack of raising agents is made up for by whisking plenty of air into a warmed mixture of eggs and sugar. The recipe's reason for the warming is that the sugar melts and the eggs whip up to their full volume.
The threat of a sunken cake comes from the fact that nothing raises this cake except the foam, and the foam collapses easily if the flour is folded in too eagerly or if the butter is allowed to cool. After five minutes of whisking the foam fell from the beaters in a ribbon that stayed visible on the surface for a moment, and from that I knew there was air enough. The butter is kept hot to the very end and stirred first into a couple of decilitres of the batter, which is only then folded into the rest. Butter that has set would, according to the recipe, leave streaks in the batter or at worst bring down the whole foam. I did not dare open the oven door until the twenty minutes were up. The cake rose properly, and its only blemish is a wrinkled top, which will in any case end up under the filling and the whipped cream.
Recipe card
Chocolate Génoise
- Oven 175 °C
- Baking 20-25 min
- Tin round, 23 cm
You will need
| 3 tbsp (42 g) | hot unsalted butter |
| 1 tsp (4 g) | vanilla extract |
| 120 ml (65 g) | plain flour |
| 80 ml (30 g) | Van Houten cocoa powder |
| 4 | large eggs |
| 160 ml (125 g) | sugar |
Method
- Heat the oven to 175 °C. Grease a round 23 cm cake tin or line it with baking parchment.
- Stir the vanilla extract into the melted butter. Keep the butter hot until it is needed. Sift the flour and the cocoa powder together into a bowl of their own.
- Bring some water to the boil in a large saucepan. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a heatproof bowl that fits into the saucepan. Set the bowl in the hot water and go on whisking by hand until the mixture is lukewarm to the touch.
- Pour the warmed egg mixture into another bowl and beat it with a hand mixer or stand mixer until the foam is fairly stiff and has tripled in volume, about five minutes. The foam is right when it falls in a ribbon as you lift the beaters, and a drop landing on the surface takes a couple of seconds to disappear.
- Sift a third of the flour and cocoa over the egg foam and fold it in carefully with a spatula. Repeat twice with the remaining flour. Take care not to overmix, as the foam collapses easily.
- When the flour is in, take a good couple of decilitres (200 ml) of the batter into a small bowl and fold the hot butter into it carefully with a small spatula. When the butter is mixed in, fold this butter mixture carefully into the rest of the batter.
- Pour the batter into the tin and level the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges of the cake have shrunk in a little and the top springs back into shape when you press it with your fingers. No trampoline effect is to be expected, mind, so take that elasticity with a pinch of salt.
- Let the cake cool before you take it out of the tin.
Génoise keeps well for a couple of days in the fridge and excellently in the freezer. Typically it is split into two or three layers and filled with whipped cream and berries. That is how you get, for example, the German cherry-filled Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, the Black Forest cake. My own plan was to make a Christmassy cranberry cake in memory of Boston and the cranberry bogs of Cape Cod. Edit: the cranberries went mouldy by accident, so in the end the cake became the cherry cake behind the link above.
2 comments
[...] Pohjaksi tälle kakulle sopii mainiosti suklaagénoise, ja suosittelenkin sen korvaamista jollain muulla suklaakakkupohjalla vain pahimman laiskotuksen iskiessä 😉 Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte [...]
Nyt on kokeiltu gleuetniton versio te4ste4 kakusta. Korvasin vehne4jauhot suoraan Sunnuntain gluteenittomalla jauhoseoksella. Niisse4 on paino-tilavuussuhde sama kuin vehne4jauhoissa. Taikinasta tuli paljon paksumpaa kun mulla aiemmin. Mutta eipe4 kakku le4sse4hte4nyt, koostumus oli musta hyvin pitke4lti samanlainen kun muissakin. Ainoa ero taisi olla, ette4 kakun pintaan muodostui parin millin kova kerros, joka ei pehmennyt vaikka oli yf6n muovipussissa. Se mureni sitten kun te4ytin kakun. Mutta kylle4 oli kiva te4ytte4e4 kakkua joka ei ollut le4sse4hte4nyt. Kiitos ohjeesta siis!T. Siukku