I was inspired to make this Red Cross Cake by a site I admire, Lost in a Pot. It’s so lusciously beautiful. This is my loose interpretation of the cake I found on that site.

This cake feels so ethereal and light, and tastes so fresh, that you’ll feel comfortable having a second slice. The first thing that hits you is the clean brightness of the strawberry. Then the cake, which looks dense, surprises you with a texture that seems nearly weightless. All of this is bathed in the comfort-inducing creaminess of the delicate whipped frosting.

For the Cake

A good génoise is a little bit tricky to make. First, the ingredients have to be warmed. You have to pay attention to their temperature as you’re working with them, and you have to work quickly enough that once you’ve set them aside, they aren’t allowed to cool too much before needed. Second, the method requires you to fold the ingredients, and that’s a skill that takes practice.

Ingredients for one 9-inch round cake:

3.5 oz. (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 oz. (1/3 cup) cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
8.75 oz. eggs (5 large eggs)
2.5 oz. (3/4 cup) cake flour

How to do make the cake:

1. Grease and flour a parchment-lined, tall-sided (2”), 9” round cake pan. Fit the pan with a magic strip, but hold off on soaking it. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Use a food processor to turn the granulated sugar into superfine sugar. It should take no more than 5 seconds.
3. Make beurre noisette (brown butter).  This simply means to melt the butter over medium heat until the milk solids brown. Here’s how it will go down: first, the butter will melt, and as it melts, it will separate into yellow-white parts and clear parts. Then it will start to boil, and the boiling will become rapid, noisy, and energetic. In time, the boiling will subside just about completely, and eventually a new, less-energetic-looking boil will start to take place. At this point, you need to start getting good, periodic views of the bottom of the pan. A fond of sorts will start to develop quickly, and when it turns dark brown, you’ll want to remove the pan from heat and pour its contents through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Meanwhile, put on a pot of water to boil.
4. You’ll eventually be extracting some of the boiling water for the recipe, and using the rest as a make-shift double boiler, so take some time to make sure you’ve got this set up the way you want it.
5. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk 2 oz. (1/4 cup) of boiling water into the cocoa until the cocoa is completely dissolved and there are no lumps whatsoever. Whisk in vanilla. Cover the cocoa (with the whisk still in the bowl) and the brown butter with a folded tea towel, in an attempt to keep both of them warm.
6. Stir the eggs and sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer placed over the pot of simmering water, until the mixture is lukewarm. Stir without stopping, lest the eggs start to cook. It should take only two minutes or so for the egg mixture to come to temperature. Immediately remove the bowl from the water, place it in the mixer, and whisk on highest speed until it turns such a pale yellow that it’s almost off-white, and it’s tripled or even quadrupled in volume, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, soak the magic strip and slip it onto the prepared pan, with the pin pointing toward the lip.
7. Whisk two cups of the whipped egg mixture into the cocoa mixture, just until fully blended.
8. Sift the flour over the remaining egg mixture, and fold just until you can no longer see the flour. Fold in the cocoa mixture. Fold in 1.25 oz. (3 Tbs) of the brown butter in two additions. With all of this folding, you must work quickly, but gently.
9. Immediately transfer the batter to the prepared pan, and bake until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan, 30-35 minutes.
10. Without waiting for the cake to cool, loosen the cake from the sides of the pan, turn it out, and reinvert it to allow it to cool completely on a lightly-greased wire rack.

If everything goes perfectly, the cake should be exactly 1.5 inches tall. If things do not go well, the cake may be much shorter than that, and you’ll may notice that the top of the cake has a markedly different texture than the bottom of the cake. It may not be utterly inedible, but it probably won’t be good, either. You should go off and have a good cry, and then get started on a replacement.

Cake Notes:

This (5 / 5) génoise comes from “Génoise au Chocolat,” from The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum, pg. 129. New York: William Morrow, 1988. I love it. If you do too, I strongly suggest you get the book. It’s crammed with helpful information about making this type of cake – the bulk of which I did not duplicate here. Instead, I reduced the instructions to their simplest form and slathered this with my own observations.

Brown butter is so delicious; you’ll be glad that this recipe leaves you with a bit leftover. Many people say it tastes nutty, I say it tastes caramelly.

Once you’ve covered the cocoa mixture, you need to work efficiently and without interruption, so that the cocoa hasn’t completely cooled by the time you’re ready for it.

Ingredient measurements are critical. If you find your eggs weigh too much, whisk them up with a fork, and then remove as much as you need to. The Bible, by the way, appears to have an error: in the ingredient list, it tells you that five eggs should weigh 8.75 ounces, but in the instructions, it seems to say they should weigh ten ounces. The right answer is the former one.

Lukewarm, to me, means at least body temperature, if not just slightly above it. In other words, if you stick your finger into the eggs, and you can’t feel that you’ve done it, it’s just barely at the “lukewarm” level. If you take it further, so that it just barely moves into the “I can feel that” area, it shouldn’t go any further.

You can achieve excellent folding results if you use a typical folding technique, but with a large balloon whisk instead of a spatula. Folding usually starts with lightening; that happens when you whisk the egg mixture into the cocoa mixture, so don’t do it again in any of the subsequent folding.

If your oven has a window, and you can use it to ascertain whether the cake has pulled away from the pan, do so – avoid opening the oven door to check. Note that it doesn’t have to pull away on all sides; if you see it’s pulled away on 1/4 of the cake, it’s time to take the cake out.

I’m loathe to use a metal knife to loosen any cake from its pans. I have restaurant-worthy, heavy-duty, insulated cake pans, and there’s just no way I’m taking a knife to them. A small metal spatula, maybe. However, I happen to have a handy-dandy cake tester whose handle doubles as cake loosener. It’s the perfect shape, and it’s made of hard yet stiffly pliable plastic. With a butter cake, I’ll often use a plastic knife, but a plastic knife might do some damage to this comparatively delicate génoise.

Working with hot pans it always dangerous. Once you’ve loosened the cake, I suggest that you invert a second wire rack, and place it on top of the cake pan. Then, using heavy-duty oven gloves on each hand, grasp the rack that the cake is on, the cake pan, and the rack on top of the cake and hold it all together as you carefully flip the entire thing. Remove what is now the upper rack, and with the gloves still on, remove the cake pan. The cake should have already fallen out, and should be resting on the rack that’s beneath it. Remove the parchment if it came out stuck to the cake. Quickly give the free rack a light greasing, place it lightly atop the cake, and once again flip the whole thing. Remove the top rack, and what you should now have is a right-side up cake resting on a lightly greased rack.

For the Syrup

Ingredients to moisten one 9-inch génoise:

2 oz. (1/4 cup + 1½ tsp) sugar
4 oz. (1/2 cup) water
1 oz. (2 Tbs) Chocolat Royal liqueur

How to do make the syrup:

1. Stir the sugar and water constantly over a med-high flame until the sugar is dissolved and it begins to bubble. Cease stirring, and allow it to come to a rolling boil. Off heat.
2. Cover. Allow to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.
3. Pour into a measuring cup: you should be about 1/8 cup shy of 3/4 cup. If you have too much syrup, boil, cool, and measure it again. (If you have too little, add water.)
4. Stir in the liqueur.

Syrup Notes:

Since the syrup needs to come to room temperature, I suggest that you start in on making it while the cake’s still in the oven.

A rolling boil is a full-on, bubble-on-bubble boil. The bubbles lose their sense of individuality and become a constant force.

Substitute a liqueur of your choice.

For the Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting

Ingredients to frost and fill one 9-inch cake:

1 pint heavy cream
4 pints of strawberries
Powdered sugar, to taste
Red food coloring, optional

How to make the frosting:

1. Cut the stems off the berries. Bisect each berry from the tip through to the stem end, and as you do, arrange them in groups of “larger,” “smaller,” “good looking,” and “less attractive.” Choose 8 of the larger, less attractive berries. Reserve the others.
2. Quarter the chosen berries. Place them into the cream and let the cream steep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator overnight.
3. Strain out the berries. Place them in a food processor and purée them. Pour the purée through a fine-mesh sieve and discard the solids. Set the purée aside.
4. Whip the cream and sugar well into the stiff peaks stage. Fold in the purée. (Add food coloring.)

Frosting Notes

This would work best with very ripe, in-season strawberries. Ron got color and flavor just from the steeping; he discarded the berries instead of incorporating them. The steeping didn’t do enough for me, and I’m guessing that it’s because the berries I used were the very sturdy commercial hybrids that you find in the store nearly year-round.

If you’re going to incorporate the purée, you can skip the steeping.

As you can see I did not push the purée through a strainer, and my frosting has strawberry seeds in it, which was perfectly fine with me. I can understand, though, that Paul Hollywood might not want them.

You may be someone who feels that you don’t need a lot of sugar in your whipped cream. If you’re adding strawberries that on their own seem to need sugar, your whip is going to definitely need that sugar.

I didn’t use food coloring, and was satisfied with the ultra-pale pink.

For the Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients for about 1 cup of sauce:

13 oz. best-quality strawberry jam

How to do it:

1. Place the jam into a small saucepot. Warm it over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it thins and begins to bubble.
2. Push it through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Discard solids.

Strawberry Sauce Notes:

Yes, who knew strawberry sauce could be that easy.

Assembly

1. Bisect the cake into two layers, preferably with one slightly taller than the other. Lay them both flat, with the cut sides up: the larger one on a cake plate, and the other on some other flat surface.
2. Sprinkle syrup over each of the cakes. Try to distribute the syrup in proportion to the cake layers: more on the taller half. Use all or nearly all the syrup; yes, it does seem like a lot – this cake can take it.
3. Hold back about 1 cup of the frosting. Divide the rest between the cakes. Use an offset spatula to even it out and spread it all the way to the edges.
4. Place the shorter layer on top of the larger one. Use the reserved frosting to frost the sides of the cake.
5. Choose similar-size, good looking berries (from those reserved while making the strawberry whip) to decorate the top of the cake. Paint each berry with strawberry sauce. Each berry has two cut sides:  the stem end, and the interior. You will be placing them with the interior cut down, so it doesn’t need to be painted. Carefully move the berries to the cake and create a large “plus” sign. Reserve any leftover berries for another use.
6. Place the cake in tightly-sealed cake tote and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
7. Dribble water, bit by bit, in to the remaining sauce, thoroughly stirring each addition until you achieve a still-thick, yet pourable sauce. Refrigerate until needed.  

Assembly Notes:

I used a silicone pastry brush to sprinkle the syrup.

The génoise is delicate enough that the upper layer is going to compress the bottom layer over time. That’s why you’ll get a better visual result if you cut the layers unevenly.

In the end, you wind up needing only 2 pints of berries, but because you need to select similar-size, good looking berries for the decoration, you need to start with 4 pints.

Serving

Additional ingredients needed for serving:

Chocolate Fudge Sauce

How to do it:

1. Since the strawberry sauce has been refrigerated, you may need to heat it to return it to a pourable consistency. Ditto with the chocolate sauce. The warm chocolate sauce may need to be thinned with milk in order to match the consistency of the strawberry sauce.
2. Spoon a Tbs or so of each sauce onto opposite sides of a dessert plate. Twirl the plate to distribute the sauce.
3. Place a slice of cake on top of the sauce.

Serving Notes:

A chocolate génoise doesn’t really scream “chocolate” at you. It’s muted. Chocolate sauce will amp this up. I didn’t think to photograph any of the chocolate-sauced platings, but trust me, it’s worth it.

I did cut my cake into even layers, and you can see how the bottom one if compressed. No big deal, but it bothers me.

The hit of strawberry sauce isn’t as necessary, but it does complement the rather demure frosting and adds sweetness to the strawberries that accompany each serving via the decoration. Plus, its tartness brings something to the table.

Really, though, neither of the sauces is completely necessary. The berries would be fine unglazed, and the cake would be outstanding ungarnished. The sauces move the cake more into the stratospheric realm, and – in keeping with my garnish philosophy – they are interesting taste additions as well as visual additions.

I like the way this cake is decorated, and I’m not sure I’d want to change it. However, I wish the cake’s exterior hinted at its chocolate interior. You might consider chocolate shavings, or decorating the cake with ganache-dipped berries.

Lost in a Pot

I’ve been admiring Lost in a Pot for a few years, now. Each time I read one of Ron’s posts, I have to resist the urge to book a flight to Sweden. One of these days, I’ll no longer resist; it’s just a matter of timing – and I’ll definitely be using all those Lost in a Pot stories to tell me where to go and what to eat. The food, the traditions, and the way of life seem almost dreamlike.

I changed many aspects of Ron’s version of this cake. First, I already had my eye on a Génoise au Chocolat recipe, so I used that instead of the one Ron presented. Second, as I mentioned, I didn’t get quite the hoped-for effect from steeping the strawberries, so I sought alternatives. I do wonder, though, what might’ve happen had I briefly heated the strawberries in the cream before steeping them. Finally, I gussied it up a bit, even though one of the things that attracted me to Ron’s cake was its charming quality.

Ron’s Friend’s Red Cross Cake

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Ron did not promise to fly me to Sweden if I brought him one of these cakes. 

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