RHC: Red Fruit Shortcake

In the home stretch of cake-of-the-week, up this time is a génoise-based shortcake covered in red fruit that Marie baked back in August 2009. My cake had strawberries and raspberries, lacking the red currants Rose included and that Marie also managed to find. I've still never seen a red currant in the flesh, but even if someone in Atlanta did carry them I gather they are not yet in season. That's OK, the strawberries and raspberries were good by themselves.

The recipe calls for a Maryann pan, a fluted pan with a recess on top, in either an 8-cup or 10-cup size. Knowing this recipe would come up eventually, I bought a silicone Maryann pan a while back. When I pulled it out and checked, it turned out to hold 5 cups, perfect for a half-recipe of the larger version. That sent me to the recipe for the Génoise Rose for the cake--beurre noisette, beaten eggs, sugar, and a cake flour/cornstarch mix for the dry ingredients. The cake released fairly well from the silicone, losing only a small piece of edge crust and a bit on the bottom that would have been removed anyway before syruping.

My berries did not produce much juice despite a nice long maceration period, so my syrup was a little on the light side for taste. I used a light hand with the Chambord liqueur even so, as it has proved too much in some earlier recipes. The syrup still had a nice color and gave the cake a pale pink tinge after it was brushed on. Once you pile on the berry mixture, though, the bright reds are what you focus on. I ate my piece with a dollop of whipped crème fraîche, lightly sweetened and with just a couple of drops of vanilla added.

Taste results: génoise is never going to be my favorite cake, but this is the way to eat it. The cake is a light vehicle to hold the pile of berries, and the tang of the crème fraîche is a good counterpoint to the sweet.

I'm without my usual "carb sink" next door as it's Passover, and so no leavened foods are allowed over there. (Well, my brother might have had some, but he's dieting.) Younger niece feels quite cheated, as this cake is right down her alley with the pile of fruit--she'd have taken a pass on the crème fraîche, though, I bet. We'll see how the cake survives overnight to be taken to the office tomorrow for other opinions. With the berries piled on the cake, it's really one that should be eaten immediately.