504023 Sat Mar 29 12:16:53 -0700 2008 2 31 Home Cooking 0 3540762 I attempted my first genoise today using a Gourmet recipe for chocolate raspberry ganache cake. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/14011 I baked the cake as per directions and all seemed to work...until i allowed the cake to cool in the pan...My cake deflated in the center quite a bit, but I still had a lot of height. The sides, however, appear torn up, as to get it out of the pan, I ran a knife around the sides. Questions abound! 1. Should I grease the sides of the pan, as suggested in the recipe? I opted to follow bakingillustrated's advice and skipped buttering the sides, though i did butter the parchment i placed on the bottom of the pan. Does a genoise need to climb? 2. Do i wait until the cake is fully cooled in pan or do i remove it from the pan immediately? Removing cake from pan soon after it's been taken out of the oven is prescribed in the recipe, though BakingIllustrated allows the cake to cool in the pan. It seems to go against what i've learned when making angel food cake (allow to cool upsidedown and throughoughly before removing from pan), so i'm confounded. 3. Cake was really lofty and domed when it came out of the oven, though deflated significantly...It sprung back when touched on top so i'm pretty sure it was fully baked. Any clue as to why this happened. Any help would be really really really appreciated...pics of my 1st attempt are below Sat Mar 29 12:16:53 -0700 2008 18608 sixelagogo 1 3540882 For a first try, I think your genoise looks pretty terrific, so don't be too hard on yourself. 1. I sometimes make a genoise in a springform pan, which makes it easier to release. But especially if I'm using a regular pan I grease the bottom and sides, add a round of parchment to the bottom, then grease again and flour. 2. I unmold the cake immediately after it's baked after loosening the side if necessary with a small spatula. 3. A cake such as this will fall a bit. Yours didn't fall much. It's not unusual to have to trim the top edges a bit to even it out. You might consider buying Magi-Cake Strips, which keep the edges of the cake a bit cooler at the beginning of baking thereby creating more even layers with maximum height. You can tell a genoise is cooked when the edges have shrunk from the sides of the pan, but you need to check very quickly and leave the oven door open for as short a time as possible. It's best not to start checking until you're pretty sure it's close to done. Opening the oven door too early or too often can be the cause of a cake falling, but as I said, yours really doesn't seem to have fallen very much. Sat Mar 29 13:04:39 -0700 2008 3540762 11407 JoanN 1 3540922 I recently made two almond torts, similar to a genoise, but using ground almonds and bread crumbs instead of flour. The first time I greased the sides as well as the bottom of the spring form pan, the second I kept the sides dry. The second rose all the way to the top of the pan. Apparently the unlubricated sides gave the batter something to cling to. Both fell in the center when cooling. This apparently is normal. The texture was fine in both cases. Joy of Cooking said you could press the rim down some when cool if you were concerned with appearance, but also said the hollow was a good place pile on the sweeten whipped cream topping. paulj Sat Mar 29 13:20:32 -0700 2008 3540762 12139 paulj