So what is a Genoise?
Wikipedia tells me “A Génoise Cake is an Italian sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and closely associated with French cuisine that does not use any chemical leavening, instead using air suspended in the batter during mixing to give volume to the cake. It is a whole-egg cake, unlike some other sponge cakes that beat their yolks and whites of the eggs separately; the eggs, and sometimes extra yolks, are beaten with sugar and heated at the same time using bain-marie or flame, to a stage known to patissiers as “ribbon stage”.”

A Génoise Cake is an Italian sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and closely associated with French cuisine that does not use any chemical leavening, instead using air suspended in the batter during mixing to give volume to the cake. It is a whole-egg cake, unlike some other sponge cakes that beat their yolks and whites of the eggs separately; the eggs, and sometimes extra yolks, are beaten with sugar and heated at the same time using bain-marie or flame, to a stage known to patissiers as “ribbon stage”.

What happened to my cake?
In the first 5 minutes, there was a nice aroma of cooked batter.  This seemed a bit odd and well, it was.  The batter leaked out of my springform cake pan onto the bottom of the oven.  I had to take the cake pan out, throw it on a cookie sheet and clean up the mess.  Threw it back in and watched the batter continue to ooze onto the cookie sheet.  I figure I’d lose a little cake, but it was cooking as it hit the pan so eventually the problems will end there, right?

Wrong.  20 minutes into baking, the middle of the cake rises about 3 times its batter height as the edges remained at a measly 1/2in.  The ooze that was cooking came back for round two.  It popped open one side of the pan and therefore created a disformed cake cooking inside and outside of the pan with varying heights of hills.  Well, at least it looked like the cake was on the “right track”.  As long as it’s light and airy, who really cares about the hills anyway.

Wrong again.  The 30 minute cook time was up and it looked good when I took it out.  Left it to cool for 20 minutes as per instruction and came back to find a flat chewy piece of…rubber??  I dared to try it and found it to taste sort of like the Vietnamese banh bo nuong (e.g. http://ricennoodles.blogspot.com/2009/02/banh-bo-nuong-baked-cow-cake.html) except… a lot flatter and not green nor comb-like.

Alterations
1. Figure out what this “ribbon stage” really is.
2. I think I got the ribboning right, but need to beat the eggs longer for complete ribboning whatever that might mean.
3. Warm the egg/sugar mixture before beating. I don’t believe I saw this in the instructions..
4. Fold the batter a little less. Maybe I deflated it.
5. Use the standing mixer instead of a handheld electric mixer.
6. I had cake flour with a Best By date from 2007… It was late so I figured no biggie, just flour. Maybe this was actually when it started to go downhill. Will go buy real flour.

I found a video with Julia of a Chocolate Genoise (http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-chocolate-genoise-cake-6587/view/). Very useful. Guess I made a lot of mistakes. Oops. Additional tips:
7. Do not let sugar sit in eggs for too long before whisking.
8. Do not toss too much flour into the mixture before folding or else it’ll create lumps.
9. Parchment paper instead of wax paper and no flour or butter.

On the upside
1. I made clarified butter. A LOT simpler than I thought it would be.
2. I made a pretty decent Italian meringue to go with it. However, I would cut back on the sugar even more next time around. Maybe just 1 cup.

Now, what am I going to blog about? I don’t really know.  I was thinking food.  As with all other times that I go watch a movie, I leave feeling like I wanted the same experience.  Well, this past weekend, I saw Julie and Julia so here I am.  I’ve always liked food.  I enjoy eating food, watching food cook, and pretending to know how to cook so there might be some way to merge all these things together.  I suppose I’m just going to throw in a mish-mosh of food blurbs, neither Yelp, Chowhound, nor Epicurious. It’s just me and my random little thoughts.