Chocolate Genoise
This delicate whole-egg sponge cake is perfect for layer and rolled cakes. It freezes nicely for up to one month.
Servings: 1 (9x13) cake
Ingredients
- 6 large eggs
- ¾ cup organic sugar
- Pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- ¾ cup cocoa
- 6 tablespoons gluten-free flour blend
- ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
- 6 tablespoons clarified unsalted butter or margarine
- Cocoa for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch jelly roll pan and line with parchment paper or dust with cocoa.
- Put eggs in their shells into a bowl of very hot (not boiling) water to heat (not cook).
- Heat some water in a pot that’s large enough for a mixing bowl to fit in but not so large that bowl sits in the water. Place mixing bowl over hot water.
- Crack warm eggs into mixing bowl. Whisk in sugar and salt. Continue whisking egg mixture until it feels quite warm. Remove from heat.
- Use mixer fitted with a whisk to beat warmed egg mixture until it begins to thicken and ribbon. Add vanilla and continue beating until batter forms a ribbon that does not melt into rest of batter.
- Sift cocoa, flour blend and xanthan gum together in a separate bowl.
- Sift a third of cocoa mixture over egg mixture and fold in. Sift and fold in remaining cocoa mixture, half at a time.
- Fold in clarified butter, half at a time.
- Very gently, pour batter into pan and smooth top.
- Bake genoise in middle of oven for 18 to 22 minutes or until cake is firm to the touch and pulls away slightly from side of pan.
- Spread a clean kitchen towel on the counter and dust with cocoa. Invert baked genoise onto towel. Trim edges. Loosely roll cake up in towel. Place this on a rack to cool.
- To assemble Buche De Noel, unroll genoise onto a clean towel or parchment paper. Spread with filling of choice (Gianduju Ganache and Chestnut Filling recipes below). Use towel or paper to roll cake into a tight cylinder. Trim cake ends diagonally, cutting 1 edge about 2 inches away from the end. Position the cut pieces like branches on the Buche De Noel, about 2/3 across the top.
- Cover Buche De Noel with chocolate buttercream (recipe below), making sure to curve around the protruding “branches” on the top. Streak buttercream with a fork or decorating comb to resemble bark.
- Transfer Buche De Noel to a platter and decorate with meringue mushrooms and marzipan holly (see below). Sprinkle platter and buche sparingly with confectioners’ sugar to resemble snow.
Notes
If batter ribbon does not “melt” immediately into the rest of the batter, it is ready. Under-beating results in a thin, eggy-tasting cake. Over-beating results in a dry-cotton texture. I prefer to error on the side of over-beating.