Genoese sponge, Petit Fours and Cost Control Operations

5 April 2011

Today we made a Genoese Sponge but we also concentrated on the const control operations of making a recipe.

When calculating the cost of a recipe always look at the small extras you will use for the recipe and incorporate it into your calculations (like butter and flour to grease a baking tin with). Always think of what else you can make with different parts of the same product to not let it go to waste. An example can be making a crème bruleè with an egg yolk and a floating island with egg whites.

Genoese Sponge

Ingredients	Quantity	Cost per item for recipe
Eggs	4	R 4.67
Sugar	100 g	R 0.72
Flour	110 g (10g used for coating baking tray)	R 0.89
Butter	60 g (10 g used for coating baking tray)	R 1.34
Silicone sheet	1 sheet (used to remove sponge from baking tray)	R 1.50

Cooking Method:

First do your mise on place to get all the ingredients ready for making the sponge. Switch the oven on to 200 degrees Celsius. Grease a baking tray with butter and flour (check chef tips). Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and put to one side. Measure out the quantity of sugar; flour and butter required using a scale. Melt the butter and sift the flour to prevent clumps. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until full ribbon stage is reached (either by hand using a balloon whisk or by using a electrical mixer). Fold in the flour into the egg mixture then add the butter and fold in well. Place the mixture into the greased pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

Chef tips:

Always remember you will need to use a little bit extra butter and flour to grease the pan. Cut 2 longs strips of silicone or wax paper and put it in a cross in the pan and spray strips with cook and spray to prevent the sponge from sticking. Always make sure the silicone paper strips are long enough and it sticks out from the edges of the baking tray to easily remove the sponge from the baking tin. You can use corn flour instead of flour if necessary. Always make sure your equipment is clean before trying to whip up a sauvignon otherwise it would not reach full ribbon stage. You can also reuse the silicone paper if you wash it and store it properly.

Petit Fours

Genoese sponge

Cut the Genoese sponge into bite size blocks and prepare the different toppings to coat the bite size sponges.

Some examples of topping:

Caramel sauce (mixture of caramel treat and cream)

Mint frosting (mixture of icing sugar, chopped mint leaves and water)

Gooseberry frosting (mixture of icing sugar, chopped fresh gooseberries and water)

Raspberry frosting (mixture of icing sugar, chopped fresh raspberries and water)

Brown chocolate gnash (4:1 melted chocolate and cream)

White chocolate gnash (4:1 melted chocolate and cream)

Chopped up roast nuts

Half nuts roasted in oven sprinkled with castor sugar (use silicone paper)