Genoise

  3.8 – 19 reviews  • Sponge Cake Recipes

Three Chile Tomatillo Salsa, a delicious vegan recipe. It has a delicious flavor because the tomatillos and chiles are dry roasted in an iron skillet until they are slightly browned. really good for green chilaquiles.

Servings: 10
Yield: 1 to 8 inch round cake

Ingredients

  1. 1 cup sifted cake flour
  2. 2 tablespoons white sugar
  3. 1 pinch salt
  4. 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  5. 4 eggs
  6. ½ cup white sugar
  7. 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 8 inch round cake pan. Line with parchment paper and grease it as well. Lightly flour pan and paper.
  2. Sift together the flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, and salt onto a piece of wax paper.
  3. Place the eggs into a mixing bowl set over a pan of hot (not boiling) water. Add the 1/2 cup sugar to the eggs and whisk until the mixture feels warm (not hot) to the touch, about body temperature. Place the bowl onto a mixer and beat on medium speed until the mixture becomes pale yellow in color and falls off the end of the whisk attachment in long ribbons. Add the vanilla. Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the beaten egg and fold in. Continue to add the remainder of the flour, folding it in each time.
  4. Place about 1 cup of the batter into the bowl containing the melted butter and combine the butter with the batter. Add this back to the main batter and fold it in. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
  5. Immediately bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 25 minutes or until the top is a light brown. Cool in pan on a rack about 10 minutes and then invert onto a rack. It is best to invert it again onto another rack so that it cools with the top up. Let cool completely before cutting or frosting.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 151 kcal
Carbohydrate 24 g
Cholesterol 81 mg
Dietary Fiber 0 g
Protein 4 g
Saturated Fat 2 g
Sodium 29 mg
Sugars 13 g
Fat 4 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Dylan Fleming
We, as another reviewer wrote, followed your recipe to a T. The cake comes out as a dense mass unfit to eat. Pretty much ruined Xmas eve. Thanks
Stephanie Dunn
Unfortunately, this is the worst genoise recipe I have followed. I do not bake this often so I just did a quick search and this version came up and i figured it would work, but it doesn’t. The batter collapsed when carefully folding the flour which I had sifted three times, and then never rose. It came out like a flat cookie. I guess it will have to be a birthday cookie… very disappointed. I had baked this a few times before but this was a disaster.
Michael Christensen
I have been looking for a great Genoise recipe since I lost my 1967 newspaper recipe for “Fancy French Cake.” This was the absolute best I have found. I followed the instructions to a T, except that I used my Kitchen Aid folding attachment for the flour mixture. The resulting cake was light, great texture, and perfect for the rum/coffee syrup I brushed on the top. I used a rum custard filling, and an Apricot glaze with a piping of whipped cream. It was delicious.
Samuel Costa
This is my absolute favorite cake. It stays moist and is very easy to make. I did a Black Forest kind with cherries and whipped cream then covered it in a chocolate ganache. I would never go back to regular cake recipes after this for any special occasion or family and friends. It is very versatile as to changing the flavor profile!!
Bethany Martinez
Based on area of 6″ round = 56% of 8″ round, I halved the recipe for a 6″ cake. Out of parchment so used foil instead… Used salted butter, skipped the salt and the vanilla. [][] It did rise to the proverbial 1.5″ from a 1″ deep batter, and shrank very little… Folding was indeed the key!! And a Balloon Whisk made a huge difference from a rubber spatula !! [][] Slow motion also minimized deflation… I lost very little volume this time before baking… whereas I lost about 1/3 of the volume last time when I used only a spatula and normal folding speed. [][] Flouring the pan/foil after greasing… Need to really tap out the excess flour… Last time when I didn’t fold lightly enough, and left excess flour… the oily part of the batter sank and mixed with the flour and gave me a leathery sheet at the bottom !! [][] The aroma was fantastic during baking and the top a lovely golden brown… and a light and tender crumb inside… Butter + egg tastes indeed pronounced, but that’s part of its rich flavour… Can’t imagine why people complain… [][] A word of caution, though : Because it’s so rich, filling/frosting should be on the light side… [][] I filled it with a White Choc Raspberry Ganache and the pink looked great against the gold of the cake, but it was too sweet / rich together… Next time I will just serve the whole wedge with Raspberry Coulis and a dusting of icing sugar… The cake is delicious on it own !! [][] A good first Genoise recipe… Thanks, Kevin !!
Stacey King
great for Opera cake. also use 1/2 flour & 1/2 ground almonds and almond flavoring instead of vanilla. Versatile but must use with a syrop else too dry. an easy version of genoise!
John Lawson
I was somewhat disappointed with this cake. I am a very proficient baker, but this was not what I had imagined genoise to be. I followed the directions to a T, but ended up with a dense cake.
Jamie Cook
I’m making a fruit filled layer cake and this is perfect because it’s not too sweet. I just made it and it’s better than expected and a lot easier than it sounded in the recipe.
Robert James
It’s exactly what I remember in cooking school. Great for petit fours.
Jennifer Molina
Sounds like the classic recipe for Genoise that I have been looking for. Great for gluten intolerant folks like me. Can’t wait to try it.
Cheryl Stone
This is a heavenly cake. Mine was neither flat tasting nor eggy tasting, as previous reviews suggest. I’m a batter taster, even though it’s supposedly bad for you, but even prior to cooking is was a delicious fluffy sweet vanilla. One thing to make sure of though, is when you are beating the eggs, make sure your whisk, whisk attachments and bowl are absolutely oil free. Any reside oil makes the eggs difficult to get fluffy, and fluffiness is the key to this recipe. Also be very very gentle folding in your ingredients and while adding them to the bowl itself, you what to preserve as many air bubbles as possible. Some things I changed: used ultrafine bakers sugar and sifted my ingredients twice (once to shift together and then once while I was gently adding them to the bowl). I also like vanilla flavor so added 2 tsp rather than 1 ½ tsp. When done it is a beautiful sponge cake. This is a perfect base for my petit fours. I’ll be using this recipe again.
Kimberly Smith
not sure if this is supposed to taste like scrambled eggs or not, but it did. followed directions exactly, was super careful folding the whites, and still it came out with an OVERWHELMING egg taste. maybe thats the point of genoise, i don’t know, but if you are just looking for a petits four base, i would not recommend this or ever use again.
Debra Walter
This is the classic sponge cake recipe. It is flat tasting because you need to soak the cake with simple syrup first before decorating it.(That is why it is called a “sponge”) Mix equal parts of sugar and water and heat to just boiling, one cup of each should be enough for one cake. Add flavor of your choice, about 2 teaspooons. One cup of syrup will be enough for one cake. Split the cake into 2 horizontal layers and wih a pasry brush apply the syrup to each layer. To finish the cake you can use buttercream or sweetened whipped cream. In between the layers can be fruit or jam or more of the frosting. This is a delicious cake when make properly as the direcions indicate.
Amy Garcia
This is so far the best GENOISE recipe I have tasted and tested. This is quite similar to the ways the ITALIANS bake their own sponge cake. This is an excellent recipe and is simplified for an easy understanding of the procedure. I modified some ingredients because I ran out of them—cake flour, I used ALL PURPOSE FLOUR. I added 1 egg, thinking- it should soften the cake since I was not using a cake flour and I have no corn starch powder to improvise on a cake flour! I used POWDERED SUGAR (CONFECTIONER). All turned out well. THANK YOU!
Madison Martin
I have never made this cake before or even heard of it, so I really don’t have anything to compare it to. It tastes good, but it is kind of flat. I followed the directions exactly. I am still going to try to use it to make petit fours. Hopefully they turn out ok with this cake. I think I will use a different cake recipe next time.
James Nunez
wonderful recipe! perfect for my petits fours. Thanks!
Cynthia Potter
This is it, the only cake that took me off my diet. Soft and delicious recipe used not only for cakes but for petits fours, madeleines, lady fingers and miniature Florentine squares.
James Hampton
This is the strangest cake ever.
Beverly Hill
A delicious feathery génoise in an ideal size. I used superfine sugar (I pulverized the required amount of ordinary sugar in my blender for a few seconds), I clarified the butter, and I sifted the flour 4 times and then a last time over the batter when folding it in. A great cake one can eat plain, although there’s nothing plain about that génoise. I’ll make it again – it’s so versatile, and I might try other flavourings than vanilla.

 

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