Okay, I have to admit: I’m kind of smug about this one. Genoise has long been my cake of choice for building layer cakes (I’ll explain why below) and I was disappointed to not be able to find a gluten-free recipe for it. To be more precise, I found one that called for a commercial American flour blend that included soy flour and other specialty ingredients in unknown ratios. A couple others had baking powder (a cardinal sin of genoise-making) and/or excessive amounts of sugar. But I thought to myself, “When making genoise, we try our best to reduce gluten development. The flour is basically just filler for the matrix of egg foam and sugar, so surely it can’t be that hard to make a gluten-free genoise”. I was right. And now I can return to genoise when constructing layer cakes, achieving the same lift, flavour and sponginess as a wheat-based genoise. Take this and run!
Some people have resisted tasting my layer cakes, sheepishly explaining, “I’ve never really liked cake”. I prod them and tell them to try a small slice. Being polite, they concede and give it a go. Always, I have heard from these cake-haters something like, “I can’t believe it, but this is delicious. It’s so light, so moist, so fresh. What is it?”. It’s genoise, sis.
I too was once a cake-hater and would have rather skipped dessert than eat a layer cake. This is because the vast majority of layer cakes offered in supermarkets, birthday parties and weddings are butter-based cakes frosted in a cloying, teeth-numbing buttercream. Fortunately, there is a definite trend away from extremely sweet buttercreams, but butter-based cakes have stuck around. Butter is delicious. I love butter. But in a cake, especially one that has been refrigerated at any point, the butter solidifies, permanently drying the sponge. Fresh butter cake, like a loaf of pound cake, is damn delicious. But the only way a butter-based layer cake is satisfying is if the sponge is baked and frosted on the same day (a feat in itself), and this means the cake doesn’t have time to sit and meld, which I believe is essential for a layer cake.
That’s where genoise comes in. Genoise contains a very small amount of butter or–as has always been my preference–oil to hydrate the sponge, though even this is technically optional. Instead of using baking powder and beating butter and sugar together to get lift in the oven, we instead create an egg foam with whole eggs and sugar. Then, we gently fold in the dry ingredients and fat. After baking, we are left with a spongy, airy cake that can be frozen and refrigerated and stacked and soaked with syrup and, without fail, remains moist and light as it’s eaten. In fact, these layer cakes improve as they sit in the fridge because the sponge absorbs the flavour of the fillings. Because of its ‘lightness’, a fat slice of layer cake made with genoise doesn’t feel heavy and deflating, the way a butter-based layer cake can make you regret accepting dessert. It’s sort of dainty and luxurious and pinky-up, and it stuns the cake-haters into a new perspective.
The technique takes some getting used to, but I promise you will improve every time you make it. The key is to reduce the amount you deflate the foam while folding in the dry ingredients and the fat, but to also not be too delicate about it. The foam will deflate despite your best efforts, but if you are mindful of stopping when you are no longer seeing flour pockets, you will still get great rise in the sponge. If you’ve never made sponge cake before, you’ll feel like a real pastry chef nailing this one.
And for the pastry chefs encountering this with some healthy skepticism: you and your clients will not be able to tell the difference between this and a standard wheat genoise. I mean it.
Overview
First we’ll create a very stable and velvety egg/sugar foam, combine our dry ingredients in the meantime, then transfer the foam to a large bowl where we will fold in the dries, then create a ‘liaison’ with the oil and fold it in, then pour the batter into the tin, knock out large air bubbles, and bake until golden and spongy.
Over on HouseMates, I will show you how to transform this sponge into a delicious, fruit-forward layer cake with green tea syrup, blackberry/blueberry compote and whipped mascarpone/cream cheese frosting, as well as provide you with general advice about crafting your own layer cake combinations. Read here.
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Recipe
Makes one 8-inch cake that can be split into three ~1 inch layers.
Ingredients:
Wet mix
300g eggs (about 6 medium) (Tip 1)
140g caster or granulated sugar (i)
1 tsp white vinegar (or lemon juice)
70g neutral oil (I use cold-pressed sunflower oil)
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste (optional)
Dry mix
10g caster or granulated sugar (ii)
1/2 tsp (1.5g) xanthan gum [I highly recommend weighing with a sensitive scale, xanthan gum is very ‘packable’]
120g GF flour blend, without xanthan gum (I use Freee Plain White Flour)
If using a blend with xanthan gum already added, reduce the additional xanthan gum amount to 1/4 tsp, as blends typically include 1/4 tsp per 120g of lfour. Most brands don’t reveal the xanthan gum concentrations, so I recommend a blend that doesn’t have any so you can customise the amount yourself.
20g milk powder (whole or skim)
2g salt (~0.5 tsp ‘kosher’/fine sea salt)
Method:
Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) fan. Line your 8-inch cake tin with parchment on the bottom and sides.
In a heatproof bowl, combine eggs, sugar (i), and vinegar. Warm over simmering water to about 38–40°C (100-104°F), whisking gently to dissolve sugar. (Tip 2)
Transfer to a stand mixer and whip on the highest speed for about 8 minutes, until the mixture is thick, pale, and forms ribbons that hold for 2–3 seconds before sinking. Then decrease to medium (~6 speed) and whip for another 3 minutes. Then decrease to low (~2 speed) and whisk for 5 minutes. Your foam should now be velvety and cohesive with no visible bubbles, and when you lift the whisk, the foam should rest on itself without sinking. (Tip 3)
Rub xanthan gum into sugar (ii) between your fingers to ensure it will not clump on contact with the foam. Combine this with all other dry ingredients and vigorously whisk for 1 minute or sift a few times.
Pour the egg foam into a wide mixing bowl, preferably a very large one and preferably transparent. Sift one-third of the dries over the foam and very gently ‘slice and scoop’ to combine. After about five folds, add another third, repeat, add the last of the dries, and when the dries have nearly disappeared, measure the oil and (optional) vanilla into a small bowl. Scoop 1-2 tbsp of the batter into the oil and mix to create a ‘liaison’. Continue adding small amounts of batter and mixing until the oil and batter have emulsified, ie. there are no visible streaks of oil and the mix becomes homogeneous. Pour this evenly over the batter, then gently fold in using the same method. Throughout this folding, we are trying to maintain as much aeration as possible, but it is also essential to not leave any pockets of unmixed flour or liaison. (Tip 4) This is why I like using a transparent bowl: pick it up and look at the sides and bottom to ensure you didn’t miss any pockets. It is better to overfold than to leave flour unmixed, so when in doubt, mix a little more. You will gain confidence with this with time!
Pour batter into lined tin. Drop the tin 30-60cm (1-2 feet) above the counter to encourage larger bubbles to pop. Gently run a skewer in a figure 8 pattern through the batter to distribute the batter evenly and pop bubbles inside.
Bake until the top springs back, a skewer comes out clean, and the sides are just beginning to pull away from the tin. Check at 20 minutes. Mine typically takes 20-25 minutes.
Let cool for 10 minutes in tin, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before removing parchment.
Storage: Cake will keep at room temperature, in a sealed container, for about 3 days. Cake can be frozen for up to one month and thawed at room temperature, though the texture will be slightly less spongy.
Serving suggestion: Split into three layers and build a layer cake by soaking the sponges with syrup and filling with fresh fruit and something creamy. I show you how to make a fruit-forward layer cake here (subscribers only).
Tip 1: The egg quantity here is very precise. If you have +/- 10g of egg, remove some of the egg white with a cookie scoop or similar until you are as close to 300g as possible.
Tip 2: Technically, this heating step is unnecessary if using European/British eggs. If you are in the USA, you must heat this mixture as hens are not typically vaccinated against salmonella and the protective cuticle on the egg is typically removed before sale. Regardless of hygiene, this step does ensure a more stable foam because it partially denatures the egg proteins and makes the foam less likely to collapse when folding. If I’m not in a hurry, I always heat this mixture, but you can skip and simply whisk longer for a similar result.
Tip 3: The initial high speed gets us the air incorporation we want, and the subsequent lower speeds knock out larger air bubbles, creating an incredibly stable foam with fine, microscopic air bubbles.
Tip 4: Here is a video of me folding the genoise so you can better understand the technique:
Notes for Nerds:
I recommend purchasing a scale that detects tenths of grams, because xanthan gum is both very ‘packable’ (ie the quantity can change significantly if compressed or if scooped while fluffy) and very potent, meaning small differences in quantity can impact your bakes. I use a JSR-150 for weighing gum/salt/baking powder/etc. I purchased it from BakeryBits for £17.
I used to bake genoise in a sheet tray, and this recipe makes a batch that is ideal for a 30x40cm sheet tray. I forfeited this technique of cutting the circles I wanted from trays because baking in tins produces less waste, and the bake is more even across the sides and center (in a tray, the sides always climb and are thus more spongy than the middle).
I use Freee Plain White Flour here. If making your own blend, it should be 50% starch (like arrowroot, cornflour, potato starch or tapioca flour), 25% lighter-protein flour (such as brown rice flour or millet), and 25% heavier-protein flour (like buckwheat, sorghum or white teff). If using a blend with xanthan gum already included, and it doesn’t state the concentration of xanthan gum, assume it has 1/4 tsp (0.75g) per 120g flour and adjust this recipe accordingly. If it bakes too crumbly, slightly increase xanthan gum next time; If it bakes too gummy/stodgy, slightly decrease xanthan gum next time.
The milk powder contributes protein which provides some heft and structure, and also helps retain moisture and tenderness (milk proteins bind water). This is recommended because gluten-free flours are more prone to drying out after baking. You could eliminate this and substitute it with additional flour, but I think it’s worth the hassle if you don’t already keep some around.
Size conversions:
All these sizes below result in partial egg formulas, so round up, vigorously whisk your eggs, then pour in the needed weight. For example, a 6 inch calls for 168g of egg, which is about 3.36 medium eggs. So whisk 4 eggs and pour in only 168g.
6-inch: 56% (multiply all ingredients by 0.56)
9-inch: 127% (multiply all ingredients by 1.27)
10-inch: 156% (multiply all ingredients by 1.56)
I like very thin sponge for layer cakes, but increase this recipe by 117% (so one additional egg) for thicker layers in an 8-inch tin. Remember to decrease/increase bake times when baking less/more batter.
I hope you give this a try, whether or not you’ve made/tasted genoise before, and convince others (and maybe even yourself) that layer cakes can be some of the most delightful desserts around.
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Next week I will share my recipe for buns, which are ideal for breakfast sandwiches, burgers, and sweet fillings. Paid subscribers will also receive my recipe for creamy coconut buns.