Clarified butter is (unsalted) butter that’s been melted, then simmered slightly to evaporate off some of the water in it, and cause the non-fat components of the butter (proteins and other miscellaneous stuff) to separate out of it. You know that white foam that collects on a pool of melted butter? Bingo, that’s them. What’s […]
READ ONClarified butter is optional but recommended in a génoise. It gives what is ordinarily a rather plain, somewhat dry sponge an enhanced butter flavor. Of course if you don’t have — or don’t like making — clarified butter, regular melted butter will still produce a excellent result. This recipe makes enough for one 18″ x […]
READ ONIn the end I decided I was over-thinking things a bit. I mean, for whatever you’re doing, you can always find a specialized formula…Swiss rolls, jelly rolls, génoise cakes…but in the end they’re all fundamentally the same cake, am I right? One recipe should suffice for all of them. So here’s what I decided to […]
READ ONWhy is it that every time I mention egg yolks I hear from VERY regular commentator Mexico Bob? He writes in to (re)remind me: Don’t forget that egg yokes contain lecithin which is a natural amphiphile which is one of the building blocks of life. In fact the word “lecithin” is Greek for “egg yolk”. […]
READ ONGénoise 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…
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