Sorbet is easy to make, as long as you have a Cuisinart ICE-50BCC Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker! Although it makes ice creams and sorbets LOUDLY, it's worth the price of the appliance since you don't have to think ahead to freeze a canister. It comes with its own compressor, so you just have to plug it in and use.

Sorbet is a smooth, sweet, fruity frozen mixture that contains sugar, water, and fruit (either juice or puréed). It doesn't contain any dairy.


The nice thing about this recipe is that it's easy. First you have to melt the sugar in the water and vanilla over medium heat. Purée the strawberries in a food processor along with the lemon juice. Cool the sugar syrup mixture before adding the puréed strawberries. Then, just process in your ice cream maker. Simple.

Recipe

Makes about 3 cups

1 cup water
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ¾ pint baskets of strawberries
Juice of ½ lemon, strained
You can find the recipe for Strawberry Sorbet in the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook (page 176).


Tasting Notes
Even though it's not strawberry season up here in wintry Ottawa, with enough sugar, vanilla and a squeeze of lemon, the strawberry flavor comes through sweet and strong. This sorbet is best served with Génoise with Chantilly Cream and Strawberries.

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $5.01
($0.83 per serving, for 6 servings)

Butter used so far: 0 tablespoons

Less than 3% complete Basic Pastry

Next recipe: Pudding Diplomate, Crème Anglaise (Ladyfinger Pudding with Crème Anglaise) and Biscuits à la cuillère (Lady fingers) page 118

::Whisk Whenever::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum (currently Basic Pastry) using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

Here's the thing. I'm ready to leave white pepper and chicken liver behind for a bit and pull out the sugar, so I'm starting to work through some of the lessons in Basic Pastry. The first class is all about Les Biscuits (Cakes).

What is Génoise
Génoise (pronounced JenWAHZ) is a delicate, Italian sponge cake named after the city of Genoa, a coastal city in northern Italy.

This cake is unique in that it does not use any chemical leavening agent such as baking powder or baking soda. Instead, it uses a technique that allows air to be suspended in the batter during mixing. This is what gives volume to the cake. Therefore, the success of this cake depends totally upon technique. It has been called one of the great "egg power" cakes and is a "test of pastry chef's technical prowess", according to Sherry Yard in The Secrets of Baking.

"This is truly captured air."

– Shirley O'Corriher in BakeWise

Génoise is a basic and adaptable cake that is a building block for much of French pâtisserie, including ladyfingers, petits fours, and madeleines.


Ingredients
Unlike the Sponge Cake, Génoise uses whole eggs without separating the whites from the yolks.

This recipe uses all-purpose flour, but some recipes call for some cornstarch or cake flour. According to Real Baking with Rose, "the higher the starch content, the lower the Génoise." 

Many of the Génoise recipes include fat in the form of melted butter, but this recipe doesn't and according to the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook, butter is not mandatory.

"Some radicals in the kitchen are now preparing a Génoise without butter,
saying that butter was only needed to help it stay fresher longer
(presumably they feel that modern people prefer stale cake.)"

– Practically Edible

How to Make Génoise
In this recipe, there are only four ingredients. And the key techniques are whisking and folding.

Bring the eggs to room temperature before you whisk them by placing them in a bowl of warm water or leave them out on the counter until room temperature. Warm eggs trap more air when whisked.

In a heatproof bowl, add the eggs and sugar. Don’t leave sugar on top of eggs because the sugar will start to burn the eggs. Whisk the eggs and sugar immediately. {This is called blanchir.} Whisk (using the whisk attachment on your stand mixer or with a hand whisk) for 1 minute, until foamy, before placing the heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. (Ensure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the simmering water.)

Whisk for 8 to 12 minutes, over simmering water, until triple in volume. Make sure the mixture doesn't get hotter than body temperature. If it does, whisk the mixture off the heat for a bit. This step is similar to making a sabayon. Your whisk should hit the sides of the bowl like a metronome, whisking to an Allegro tempo, and constantly. In the end, it should have the texture of soft whipped cream.

Take the mixture off the heat, add the vanilla and whisk to cool it down (either with a hand whisk, if your arms can handle more exercise, or with the whisk attachment on your stand mixer).

It's important to sift the flour before folding it into the batter. When folding, be careful not to deflate the batter. Fold in the flour into the batter in two or three batches so that the weight of the flour doesn't collapse all the whisking you just did.

Baking Génoise
Fill a pan two-thirds full so that it has room to rise. According to Sherry Yard, spinning the pan helps the batter to cling to the sides and avoid a dome-shaped result. Bake in a hot oven at 375˚F.

Don't open the oven door during baking or it might deflate. As well, it sometimes falls as it comes out of the oven.

Do not over-bake.

To test whether the cake is done, touch the cake in the center. If it springs back when touched lightly, it's done. At this point the cake should just be starting to pull away from the side of the pan.

Recipe

Makes 1 8-inch round pan {I made 2 mini hearts, 3 cupcake-sized ones, and 2 minis}


Génoise:
3 eggs, room temperature
½ cup sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Chantilly Cream:
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

You can find the recipe for Génoise with Chantilly Cream and Strawberries in the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook (page 176). To see how the rest of the Whisk Whenever group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!


Tasting Notes
This Génoise cake is like biting into a cakey marshmallow and makes a small squishy sound in your mouth. It is a strong cake that holds together after taking a bite, unlike the crumb of something cupcake-like. Paired with a bite of vanilla-infused whipped cream (or Chantilly cream as the French call it) and a sweet strawberry, it's a crowd pleaser. It would be even better soaked in a flavored syrup or liqueur. And it's best eaten when fresh since Génoise cakes without butter don't keep well.

Videos
• Julia Child
• Gourmet Magazine

Links
• Real Baking with Rose "Fear of Génoise -- an Important Lesson"
• Joe Pastry "How to Make Génoise Batter"
• Zoë Bakes "Basics: Génoise and Homemade Rolled Fondant! part one"
• Cordonblues' Blog "Building Block of Cakes: Génoise"
• Practically Edible "Génoise"

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1.15
($0.14 per serving, if 8 servings in 8-inch round cake pan)

Butter used so far: 0 tablespoons

Less than 3% complete Basic Pastry

Next recipe: Pudding Diplomate, Crème Anglaise (Ladyfinger Pudding with Crème Anglaise) and Biscuits à la cuillère (Lady fingers) page 118

If you like this post, share it!



If you like this blog, you can subscribe and get updates automatically.

Click here to learn about subscribing.

Click here to subscribe.

There’s an old story in our family surrounding egg cakes. The story centers around a hired man – a man who worked hard all day on my Grandfather's farm, and sang songs all evening, accompanying himself on an old guitar. "Drifting along like a tumblin' tumbleweed. . ."; "I Don't Hurt Anymore" and other Hank Snow favorites.

One morning, so the story goes, this hired man with the squinty eyes, the slow drawl and the quiet manner, announced that he was going to make breakfast. Without looking at a recipe, he put together a mixture of milk (from the cow in the barn) and eggs (from the chickens in the coop) and produced what he called "Egg Cakes." Said they were like his mother always made. She was Norwegian.

The third in this series of waffle posts (see previous posts on Best Waffles and Hard Waffles) is Krum Kake. Pronounced "KROOM kah kah", this is a favorite Norwegian treat. The word "Krum" means "bent" and "Kake" means "cake" so Krum Kake is a "bent cake". Baked on a type of waffle iron, the Krum Kake is coiled around a wooden cone as soon as it comes off the iron. As it cools, it becomes crisp and can be slipped off the cone.

In my grandmother’s family, which was Norwegian, one of the specialty foods that was often served at afternoon coffee gatherings was what was known as "Hard Waffles" (as opposed to what was called "soft waffles" shown in my previous post).

These Hard Waffles were served cold, with a generous layer of butter spread on them. They would be eaten first, with cookies, shortbread, fruitcake and homemade chocolates to follow.

Waffles: a Sunday Brunch family favorite. Served with vanilla ice cream and strawberries is how we like them, but whipped cream, Canadian Maple Syrup and even Nutella are favorite toppings too. They are best eaten right off the waffle iron, work well on those lazy weekend mornings when there is lots of coffee flowing, a good newspaper to read, or better yet, lively conversation while you await your turn for the next hot one to be served.

Pavlova. It's like a cloud, with a few sweet calories, but gluten free! Which is exactly the type of dessert I was looking for when preparing for a Christmas dinner catering event that had to be gluten-free, lactose-free and include a vegetarian option! This dessert was a sweet ending that could be served with lactaid-laced cream or on its own with fruit.

Popularized in New York City, the Cosmopolitan has been called the quintessential New York cocktail. Now trendy everywhere, it is not only delicious, but classy, pretty, pink, easy to make and fun to serve (especially at Christmas).

The traditional cosmopolitan is made with vodka, cointreau or Triple Sec, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed lime juice.

The first step in making shortbread, and many baked goods for that matter, is creaming the butter and sugar. I thought it was funny when someone next to me in the kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu asked me where the cream was when she heard that we had to "cream the butter and sugar" for the tuiles we were making that day. We all have to start somewhere: some watch a master Michelin-starred chef in a famous cooking school, some hold onto their grandmother's apron stirring batter alongside, and some watch endless hours of the Food Network and are forever scarred by the perfectionism of Martha.

This Biscuit de Savoie cake was one of my favorite recipes at Le Cordon Bleu. In fact, after the demo, I helped polish off many hunks (pulling off pieces with my fingers since there were no knives, only dull, plastic spoons). I dipped my pieces into the fresh, sweet crème anglaise the chef had made. I'd made this cake once before, and it was popular then too.

When you take a bite, it makes a squishy, bubbly sound. With its hint of vanilla, it adapts well to dipping into chocolate or fruit coulis, but stands on its own as a mid-morning grumble-stopper.

One of the perks of going to Le Cordon Bleu is the $1000 knife kit, supplied as part of the tuition (so really you're paying $9000 for it!). Now I'm the kind of girl who prefers kitchen gadgets over jewellery, so having the knife kit in my possession is pretty cool. In fact, I'm considering bringing it along with me at Christmas since my mom's knives are circa 1960 and dull as my Grandma's knees!

These two blogs list the contents of the knife kit thoroughly, so I won't re-list them here. But I thought I'd list some kitchen tools from the kit along with other items I found useful during my practical classes at Le Cordon Bleu.

I passed!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today, exams are over. I feel raw, going over every detail of what I could have done differently. My shaking hands at the end telling me this is tough. Taking a deep breath. Remembering the charms and good wishes in my pocket from my children...the wishbone that I was too scared to pull in case I didn't get the right end, the rock, the butterfly eraser. Wishes to help me get through a difficult event, to help me remember what's important, to help me be happy.

I learned a lot these past three months. About me, about life, but mostly about food.

I once worked beside a little-known, but top-notch take-out café called The Five Senses. Many times a week, I'd wander over at noon to see what the chef was cooking in his kitchen. Even though he worked the kitchen alone, he was able to create delicious food, but he was often stressed and voiced his frustration at being "in the weeds" to his customers (which wasn't good for business).

Here is one of our family favorite meals both because it's tasty and easy to prepare. The secret ingredient is a package of onion soup mix! Shh...don't tell the chefs at Le Cordon Bleu! They would want you to make French Onion Soup from scratch and dehydrate it yourself!