Sponge Cake (French Joconde)

french-joconde Joconde is a light and airy sponge cake that you can use to make many types of desserts. Joconde does not have a lot of fat in it and is considered to be a healthy version of a traditional cake. Biscuit Joconde is a light almond sponge cake, which is known as La Joconde in French, it is named after the Mona Lisa. I made joconde a lot in pastry school. We used it to make opera cakes, sponge cakes and little desserts filled with mousse or buttercream. Because joconde is so versatile, you can also make some elaborate stenciled designs using Joconde. To colour joconde, take out 1/3 of the cake batter and add some cocoa powder to it or some food colouring. You can stencil this colour onto the parchment paper or silpat. Then bake that for 5 minutes just to set it. Add the rest of your batter on top of the stencil and bake for 8 minutes until the edges just start to brown. You can make some really cute desserts with stenciled joconde. Cut off the browned edges of your cake and then cut your joconde into thin strips. Line the inside of a large cookie cutter with the strip. Then cut another circle out of the striped sponge with a round cookie cutter to fill the bottom of the cutter. Then you'll want to fill the center with some mousse and refrigerate until set. Topping the simple dessert with a chocolate butterfly makes this dessert seem a lot more complicated than it is.

7 oz almond flour (198 g)
6 oz confectioners' sugar (170 g)
2 oz cake flour (57 g)
5 large eggs
6 whole egg whites
1 oz sugar (28 g)
2½ oz butter, melted (71 g)

First you need to preheat your oven to 425°F (220°C/200°C fan, Gas Mark 7).

Sift together your almond flour, first measurement of sugar and flour so you don't have any lumps.

Then you should blend in the 5 whole eggs into the flour until smooth.

In a separate bowl, whip egg whites to soft peaks and slowly add in the second measurement of sugar. Continue whipping to firm moist peaks. If they start crumbling you have over-whipped your egg whites and there isn't any way to save them.

Then fold your meringue into mixture until just combined. Make sure you don't over mix it or get too rough and break down all the air you built up in your batter or you'll have a very flat cake.

Slowly whisk in the melted butter.

Finally, spread the mixture onto your prepared silicone mat or parchment paper in a jelly roll or shallow sheet pan (13x18") and bake for 8 minutes. Make sure you don't over bake your cake.

Once your cake is cooled, sprinkle a thin layer of granulated sugar over the surface of the cake and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit overnight in the fridge. The sugar will dissolve into the cake as a result, the cake will stay moist even if it's exposed to air.

Makes 50 servings.

Chocolate Variation: You will need to replace 35 g of flour with 25 g flour + 15 g cocoa powder.