Génoise is one of the archetypal examples of so-called mechanical leavening, in which hot, expanding pockets of steam do all the heavy lifting. Those steam pockets, however, don’t create themselves. They have to get their start somewhere, and in a sponge cake like génoise, that start is an egg foam. Génoise is somewhat unusual in […]
READ ONOr jam roll, really, since that’s what most people roll up in their génoise sheets. The big problem they have, of course, is cracking. But let’s face it, cake isn’t really designed to withstand the stresses that come into play when you wrap it up into a curlicue. Structures made of cooked starch and/or egg […]
READ ON…to bring you this wonderful excerpt from the memoir A Life of Her Own: A Countrywoman in Twentieth-Century France by Emilie Carles. Sent in by reader Tom, it provides a fascinating window into the baking culture of a remote village in the Clarée Valley in extreme southeastern France (up in the Alps, donchaknow). For all […]
READ ON…with Christopher Jennings in Atlanta: http://tinyurl.com/c3ygxm. Actually, I wanted to do this sort of simple Q & A thing right here on the blog when I first set out, but couldn’t get anyone interested enough to talk to me (sniff). Maybe things are different now. Any of you pro pastry or bread folks want to […]
READ ONYesterday I asked for responses as to which kind of génoise recipe I should do his week: a cake layer type or a sheet pan/jelly roll type. The response has been unequivocal: Jelly roll! Jelly roll! Jelly roll! Only here’s my problem: a classic génoise is leavened with egg foam only, whereas a classic American […]
READ ONLooks like Chicago is a hot spot for James Beard nominations this year. Ah, the old home town…
READ ONIf the word itself sounds like a French-ified pronunciation of the Italian city of Genoa, then you get today’s cash prize (null and void in all areas). It is, in short, sponge cake of the type that the Genoese made, though it’s become phenomenally important to French pastry makers over the centuries. It is the […]
READ ONI’ve received quite a lot of feedback on this the last several days, from both physicists and bakers (interesting combo) from as close as Indianapolis and as far away as New Zealand. Oddly, no real consensus emerged among them, even within the (albeit small) groups. While it’s indisputably true that condensation (a heat-bringing process) occurs […]
READ ONA spate of reported génoise catastrophes — among the readership and even right here in my neighborhood — is forcing me to preempt my regular request list in favor of an emergency intervention. What can I say? Dramatic action is called for. Something must be done to combat the rising tide of crumbling sponge cake […]
READ ON…I’m pretty much done with the topic of baguettes anyhow. I have a few questions that I still wanted to answer, one in particular about whether it might be possible — if you really tried hard — to replicate a real French baguette in America. The short answer is “no”. The long answer is “still […]
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