Living in the Gateaux

I'm sad to be leaving bread making but I'm super excited about cakes! This is the reason why I signed up for pastry school. I want to make fabulous cakes! Today was our first time making genoise sponge cake. Genoise is a cake that is not leavened by a chemical agent. Eggs are heated and beaten to give it its light spongy texture. The chefs decided to have us make cakes the old school method, like back in the days when they didn't have electricity and had to power their ovens by cranking a handle. (yea right!) We had to whisk eggs over a pot of simmering water until it tripled in volume. This took about 10 minutes of constantly whisking. If you stopped whisking the eggs would turn into scrambled eggs. I could not beat the eggs fast enough to get the volume needed! My arms were exhausted! I think culinary school is going to put some muscles on this skinny little girl! My cake turned out flat, dense, and disgusting. Good thing they let us use the hobart mixer the second time! My cake came out much better. We also made buttercream which I'm not a fan of. I'm more partial to fresh whipped cream then just sweetened whipped butter. So here it is! The first cake I made in school! It consists of three genoise layers, raspberry jam, and vanilla buttercream. Isn't she pretty?