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For a birthday cake at work, I have a request for a Nut Genoise. I've never baked one before, but there is a recipe in Susan Purdy's The Perfect Cake, which is my go-to cake book. It calls for 1/2 cup of finely ground almonds, pecans, or hazelnuts. Do you think that I could use KAF pecan meal? I have it in the freezer and need to use it up. Also, my food processor is still out of commission, as I wait for Cuisinart to send me a replacement blade.
I'll need to bake the layers tomorrow.
Cass, I'm going to go ahead and split them and see if they are ok. Mike commented in the baking thread that this may be the height that they are supposed to have. I also looked at some pictures on the internet, which give me hope. I will go ahead and slice the layers, and if they look good, I'll assemble the cake.
The cake seemed a bit dry to me, in spite of the soaking syrup. The book cautioned not to use more than 3 Tbs. per layer, but with the nuts, maybe a little more would have been better. I used 1 tsp of rum extract in the soaking syrup. That did not have very much taste. I probably should have used regular rum, but I worried about overwhelming the cake.
People liked it, but that may have been the frosting talking.
I will probably try it again some time, but next time, I will beat the egg-sugar mixer at a higher speed. “Medium high” did not tell me a lot, and my Cuisinart has 12 speeds. I think that I should have beaten it on 8 the entire time. (I started it on six.) I think that I lost some loft when I folded the melted butter into 1 1/2 cups of the batter that I’d moved to a different bowl, per directions, then added it back to the large bowl. I also wish that I had looked at more internet pictures before I started. It really does help to see what batter is supposed to look like at certain stages.
NARLISS:
Good afternoon. Do not beat yourself up for the outcome of your "FIRST ATTEMPT"
on baking a foam type of cake. They are the most difficult type to do properly.
Even prof bakers have disappointments every now & then. Very sensitive type of baked product.
Narliss, the instructions about the brushing on the layers basically is so to alert the baker not to apply too much because this type of cake structure has a WEAK STRUCTURE & will totally collapse. I think you should just observe when applying same....stop when it is JUST GETTING TO BE SOAKED ENOUGH.
I am sure you did a good job of it.Anyway Marliss, here is a website that I have in my favorites. I re~read this & others to keep learning. I will share it with you my friend. I think I may have others on a U~TUBE style on sponge foam cakes that you would appreciate. I will post to you in ~E~Mail format soon or when I can locate them in my very long list of favorites box.
Till then enjoy the day my friend.
`CASS / KIDPIZZA.
Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions, Cass and Mike.
Actually, I wasn't beating egg whites. The recipe calls for heating a mixture of six eggs and a cup of sugar in the mixing bowl on top of a pan (double boiler), stirring constantly with a whisk, until it reaches (110-120F). Then the bowl goes onto the mixer, and the egg-sugar mixer is beaten at medium high speed until it reaches the "ribbon stage." While the directions said 3-4 minutes, it was not at that stage at that point, so I increased the speed and beat longer, but I suspect that I was not clear on what ribbon stage should look like. After looking at some pictures later on, I think beating a little longer was likely necessary. I don't know if that mixture could be over beaten or not.
I folded in the flour, then the nuts, a little at a time with a spatula. I wonder if I should have used my cake whisk. It has a flat oval top, with a square criss-cross pattern, and I've used it for adding in whipped egg whites for waffles.
I will try this again, because, hey, I like the challenge, but probably not before we move in June. I'm focusing now on using up a lot of ingredients that would be difficult to move, especially in hotter weather.
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