Cake recipe seems weird

[Howard]

Recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Genoise cake calls for 1/3 cup cake flour and 1/3 cup corn starch. Flour and cornstarch at 1:1? Is this common? I'm going to use another genoise recipe for this cake but...Enquiring minds want to know!!
Thanks

Here's the link to the complete recipe - (it's copyrighted)

Chocolate Raspberry Bavarian Cake

[Mike Filigenzi]

Recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Genoise cake calls for 1/3 cup cake flour and 1/3 cup corn starch. Flour and cornstarch at 1:1? Is this common? I'm going to use another genoise recipe for this cake but...Enquiring minds want to know!!
Thanks

Here's the link to the complete recipe - (it's copyrighted)

Chocolate Raspberry Bavarian Cake

Wish my wife was home - she'd probably be able to shed a little more light on this. I took a quick look through Berenbaum's The Cake Bible, though, and found a recipe for Genoise Classique that uses 1/2 cup of cake flour and 1/2 cup minus 1 T. of cornstarch. She says that the cornstarch tightens the grain and holds the moisture supplied by the eggs and sugar. FWIW, this recipe seems to have the highest ratio of cornstarch to cake flour of any of the genoise in the book.

Mike

[Howard]

Thanks, Mike. Looks like the recipe was not so weird after all.
Here is the one I used:

Chocolate Genoise Recipe
This one uses NO cornstarch. Looks like some research is in order for me later.

[Mike Filigenzi]

Thanks, Mike. Looks like the recipe was not so weird after all.
Here is the one I used:

Chocolate Genoise Recipe
This one uses NO cornstarch. Looks like some research is in order for me later.

Nice article on genoise there!

My wife got home shortly after I posted, so I asked her about the corn starch thing. She said that in her experience, that's something the French do with genoise. She's seen plenty of recipes that don't call for it, so it would seem like it's not necessary.

How'd the cake turn out?

Mike

[Howard]

Well, now that you ask, it seems kind of flat. I wonder if I should just make another layer rather than trying to cut this one in half. Hmmmm.

[Howard]

I made another cake using the recipe with the cornstarch. This one rose to about 2 inches which is what I needed. I've yet to assemble it and will try to post a picture when its done.
Thanks for your help.
Howard

[Jenise]

Interesting difference betwen w/ and w/o cornstarch, Howard. That's the only diffference between your two efforts?

[Howard]

Hi Jenise,
I'm at work so I can't compare line by line the recipes. I do know that with the first (no cornstarch) I beat the heck out of it with the beater blade of the kitchenaid mixer. With the second, I used the whip attachment and I think the batter was stiffer. Also, the first recipe called for adding melted butter, which means another session of trying to carefully fold something into the batter. I think the batter wasn't whipped well enough the first time AND I had to manipulate it more than the second so there was more chance to deflate it prior to baking. Don't know if it's significant or not, but it's hard to just blame the cornstarch. Regarding the second, it was delicious so the 1:1 cornstarch didn't add any, well, starchy flavors. I'll try to post a picture when I get home.

[Mike Filigenzi]

Hi Jenise,
I'm at work so I can't compare line by line the recipes. I do know that with the first (no cornstarch) I beat the heck out of it with the beater blade of the kitchenaid mixer. With the second, I used the whip attachment and I think the batter was stiffer. Also, the first recipe called for adding melted butter, which means another session of trying to carefully fold something into the batter. I think the batter wasn't whipped well enough the first time AND I had to manipulate it more than the second so there was more chance to deflate it prior to baking. Don't know if it's significant or not, but it's hard to just blame the cornstarch. Regarding the second, it was delicious so the 1:1 cornstarch didn't add any, well, starchy flavors. I'll try to post a picture when I get home.

When I get home, I'll check the Cake Bible recipe. She claims that it's a particularly good genoise - I'll be curious to see if hers differs from the one you used.

Mike