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Plain Genoise

By Nick Malgieri

5.0

(8)

Two slices of plain genoise cake on plates with blackberries raspberries and whipped buttercream.
Photo by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Micah Marie Morton

This rich, delicate cake forms the basis for many filled, frosted, and glazed cakes. A good plain gênoise is hard to beat—it has an elegance that derives from its simplicity, and I even like them unadorned. Many recipes for gênoise add butter as an enrichment. Unfortunately, sometimes the extra manipulation the incorporation of the butter necessitates causes these light batters to fall. So I prefer to add a few extra egg yolks instead—they not only help enrich the cake, they also provide greater stability to the foam, ultimately making the batter easier to prepare.

This recipe originally accompanied the Strawberry Roulade .

Storage:

Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several days, or double wrap and freeze for up to a month.

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