FOR SPONGE CAKE
Ingredients:
- 4 Eggs, room temperature
- 4 oz Sugar
- 4 oz Cake Flour (or Pastry Flour), sifted three times
- 1 oz Clarified Butter, melted – regular unsalted butter is ok
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
**Can add lemon/orange zest as well depending on type of cake you are making. Also, this cake can be made in advance and frozen, wrapped tightly in saran wrap. Thaw before ready to use.
**For chocolate genoise, replace 1/3 cup flour with cocoa powder.
**This recipe makes an 8 inch cake.
**This cake can be filed with pastry cream, Bavarian cream, berries, simple syrup, etc.
Directions:
- Coat an 8 inch pan with Crisco or nonstick spray. Cover with parchment and coat again. Ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles when greasing the parchment. Dust with flour. Be sure to totally coat with flour and remove excess.
- Whisk the sugar and eggs until the sugar is dissolved. Then warm the eggs and sugar over a double boiler while constantly whisking. Whisk and incorporate as much air into the eggs as possible. Whisk by hand until the mixture is pale yellow and ribbony. You should be able to make an “S” with the batter falling off the whisk. This will take about 10 minutes. Midway through you can take a hand mixer and whisk with that if your hand starts to hurt.
- Sift a 1/3 of the flour into the mixture and fold gently, careful not to lose volume. Do not overfold.
- Sift in remaining flour in thirds.
- Add the butter onto a spatula and fold in from the side. Do not add the butter directly over the mixture or the batter will lose volume.
- Add the vanilla and fold in.
- Immediately pour the mixture into your cake pan, and gently tap once. Do not knock the pan down on the table.
- Place in a 350 degrees oven (325 for convection) for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. The cake is done when it is puffed and golden, and the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Do not open the oven while baking or the cake will deflate.
- Remove from oven and cool cake in pan for 10 minutes. Then unmold onto a wired rack until completely cooled
FOR PASTRY CREAM FILLING (use in place of Bavarian Cream)
Ingredients:
- 2 cups Whole Milk
- 6 Egg Yolks
- 5 oz Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 1/2 oz Cornstarch (approx 3 tbsp)
- 2 cups Heavy Cream- cold
- Powdered Sugar (optional)
- 1 packet powdered Gelatin (or 5 Gelatin Sheets)
*The pastry cream is very versatile and can be used for cream puffs, eclairs, fruit tarts, etc)
Directions:
- Place 2 cups of milk in a pot and heat to a boil. Remove from heat once boiling
- Separate the eggs and set yolks aside in a bowl. The egg whites can be discarded or saved for personal use.
- Add sugar to the egg yolks and whisk quickly by hand with a wire whisk. Make sure that all of the sugar is dissolved.
- Add cornstarch to the bowl, an d whisk in well.
- Add vanilla and whisk in.
- Temper the egg mixture with the milk. This means whisking in a little bit of milk in the egg yolks at a time to ensure that the eggs do not scramble. Keep whisking in milk until fully incorporated.
- Return the entire mixture to the pot and place on the stove under medium heat.
- Whisk constantly until the mixture starts to thicken. As soon as it's thickening, remove from the heat and keep whisking. You may need to place the pot on and off the heat to thin the custard out a little and get rid of the cornstarch flavor. The mixture is ready when it is shiny, smooth, and no lumps. Taste to ensure that the cornstarch flavor is out as well.
- Place the pastry cream custard in a bowl and sprinkle with 1 tbsp sugar on top. This prevents a skin from forming on the custard.
- Tightly place plastic wrap directly over the custard, so it touches the custard completely and no air can get into the bowl.
- Let the custard cook completely (you can use an ice bath).
**The steps to follow should not be executed until you are ready to assemble your cake.
- Whip your heavy cream to soft peaks in a cold bowl and set aside. If desired you can add some powdered sugar during whipping for extra sweetness, but it is not necessary. Keep cold in the refrigerator.
- Bloom your gelatin powder. This is done by sprinkling the gelatin with a tablespoon of cold water. Let rest for a minute to allow the gelatin to soften. Then whisk in a tablespoon of hot water. The gelatin should turn into a smooth syrupy texture. If using gelatin sheets, bloom by placing the sheets in an ice water bath. The sheets should be completely submerged in the water. Once the gelatin sheets are completely softened, melt the gelatin in a couple teaspoons of hot water Immediately add this to your warmed pastry cream (see next step).
- Warm your pastry cream over a double boiler. Your pastry cream needs to be warm to allow the gelatin to dissolve into it. Whisk the bloomed gelatin into the warm pastry cream.
- Now you will need to cool the pastry cream before folding in the whipped cream. Otherwise the whipped cream will melt. Note that once you cool your pastry cream with the gelatin, you need to fold in the whipped cream quickly, or your gelatin will force it to set.
- Cool the pastry cream over an ice bath. Once cooled, quickly whisk in a little bit of whipped cream and fully incorporate. Gently fold in the remainder of the whipped cream. Note, that you may not use all of the whipped cream. Just use enough for your desired texture, taste, and fluffiness. The purpose of the cream is just to lighten the pastry cream custard and resemble a bavarian cream.
FOR CAKE DECORATION & ASSEMBLY
Ingredients:
- Sliced Strawberries
- Fresh Berries (or any fruit you wish to decorate with)
- Fresh Whipped Cream (from 1 1/2 cups whipping cream sweetened with powdered sugar)
- Apricot Preserves for preserving the fruit
- Strawberry jam or glaze
- Sugar Syrup (equal parts water and sugar brought to a boil and cooled)
- Slivered Almonds
Directions:
- Slice your genoise in 2 or 3 with a serrated knife. After slicing, remove any flour bits in the cake if they exist.
- Have your fruit, sugar syrup, cream filling, strawberry jam/glaze ready to go for assembly
- On a cake plate, place one of the cake slices. Line the cake side with parchment paper or an acetate liner. This is to ensure that the cream filling doesn't spill over the sides when assembling. Brush the slice liberally with sugar syrup. Spread a thin layer of strawberry glaze or jam. Spoon bavarian cream onto the bottom slice of cake and spread with a spatula. Layer thinly sliced strawberries on top.
- Repeat with with remaining cake slices. Do not ice the cake with the whipped cream topping or decorate with berries at this point. Refrigerate the cake so the filling sets for at least 4 hours.
- Remove cake from the refrigerator, and ice with whipped cream all over. Decorate the cake with fresh berries as desired. Press slivered almonds on to side of cake once iced.
- Warm the apricot preserves with a little bit of water until completely warmed through. Brush this on the fruit decoration for preservation.
- Refrigerate cake for at least another 2 hours before slicing and serving.
