No. 3307

Genoese Cake—Light

Genoise Legere

Put twelve whole eggs and eight yolks into a basin with one pound of sugar, a part of it being flavored with vanilla (No. 179); beat together vigorously for twenty minutes on slow fire, barely heating the preparation, and when well beaten and very light mix in lightly one pound of sifted flour, using a small skimmer or spoon, then half a pound of melted fresh butter added a little at a time. Butter lightly a pan twelve inches long by seven and a half wide and two inches deep; glaze it with flour and sugar, half and half, well mixed together and sifted through a sieve. Fill the pan three-quarters full with the preparation, lay it in a baking pan and place it in a slack oven to bake for forty-five to fifty minutes. As soon as the cake is done, remove and unmold it on a wire grate to get cold; afterward cover it lightly with well-reduced peach or apricot jam (No. 3675) and ice over with water icing flavored with vanilla (No. 102); place for an instant at the entrance of the oven to dry the icing; allow to cool; cut the Genoese cake into oblong pieces and serve.

This cake can also be made in a round mold and iced exactly the same, decorating the top with candied fruits; dress on a round plate ornamented with lace paper.

← No. 3306 Galettes Puffed and half Puffed Small Cakes for Entremets No. 3308 Genoeses with Cream Meringued →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full-sized genoise batter, built on the warm whole-egg foam rather than on chemical leavening. Ranhofer's cross-references send you elsewhere in the book for the vanilla sugar, apricot glaze and icing; the notes below cover what those are and where the batter can fail.

The hinge: warm the eggs, then keep them warmTwelve whole eggs and eight yolks with a pound of sugar come to ribbon stage fastest if the mixture is kept warm to the finger while beating, which is what Ranhofer's "barely heating" asks for; never hot enough to set the yolks. Cold, the foam takes air slowly and stiffens; too hot and you get sweet scrambled egg.
Beating timeTwenty minutes was a hand-whisk figure. In a stand mixer, warm the eggs and sugar over a water bath to blood heat, then whip on high 8-10 minutes until the batter falls from the whisk in a ribbon that sits on the surface for several seconds.
"Slack oven"No temperature is given in the text; the term is usually reckoned somewhere in the region of 275-325F. The low heat lets a pan this size set through without doming and cracking, and 45-50 minutes is plausible in that range.
The water bath is not a water bath"Lay it in a baking pan" most likely means setting the cake pan inside a second, larger pan: a dry double pan to buffer the bottom heat rather than a bain-marie. The text says nothing about water, so do not add any.
The butterHalf a pound of melted butter is heavy enough to deflate the foam if it is dumped in. Have it warm, not hot, and drizzle it down the side of the bowl into the last of the folding; some cooks slacken a cupful of batter with the butter first, then fold that back in.
"Small skimmer"An écumoire — a flat perforated skimmer, used here as a folding tool. A large silicone spatula does the same work with fewer strokes.
Pan and yieldTwelve by seven and a half by two inches is somewhat smaller than a quarter sheet pan. Filled three-quarters full it gives a slab that will cut into a couple of dozen or so oblong fingers, depending how you size them.
Glazing the panEqual parts flour and granulated sugar, sifted together and dusted over buttered tin, gives a thin crisp shell and clean release. Modern equivalent: butter, then dust with a flour-sugar mix, tapping out the excess.
The finishNo. 3675 is a reduced apricot or peach jam brushed on as a sealing glaze; No. 102 is a water icing -- sifted confectioners' sugar slaked with a little water and vanilla to a pourable consistency. The "entrance of the oven" is the warm mouth of a cooling oven, gentle residual heat, just enough to set the icing to a matte shell.
Vanilla sugarNo. 179 is the book's cross-reference for the vanilla flavoring, i.e. a vanilla-scented sugar. Note that only part of the pound is flavored, not all of it.

A Little History

Génoise takes its name from Genoa, and the pastry trade has long credited its arrival in France to Genoese confectioners working there, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. What defines it is the method rather than the city: whole eggs warmed with sugar and whipped to a foam that carries the whole cake, with flour and butter folded in at the end and no yeast, soda or baking powder anywhere. That makes it the workhorse batter of the classical pastry kitchen — sturdy enough to slice, split, soak in syrup and ice. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, files it here among the small cakes for entremets, the sweet course that came before dessert proper: baked in a slab, glazed, iced, and cut into fingers so that a plate of them could be dressed on lace paper and set out with the rest.