Trois Freres (rice flour sponge cake)

[sanrensho]

Has anybody tried making the Trois Freres (Three Brothers sponge cake) from Healy's Art of the Cake? This recipe calls for using rice flour in place of the usual wheat flour. I'm not familiar with using rice flour in this type of recipe, although I've enjoyed many a Vietnamese baguette made with rice flour.

I'm wondering what to expect taste-wise from this recipe. Also, should I expect any problems baking this in a sheet pan?

Thanks.

Edited March 23, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[rickster]

I tried this several years ago and did not like the result. Not sure if it was the type of rice flour I used (something from whole foods as I recall), but the cake had a strange sort of crunchy texture. I baked it in a kugelhopf mold so can't help you on whether it works in a sheet pan

[sanrensho]

I tried this several years ago and did not like the result. Not sure if it was the type of rice flour I used (something from whole foods as I recall), but the cake had a strange sort of crunchy texture. I baked it in a kugelhopf mold so can't help you on whether it works in a sheet pan

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Thanks for your comments. If anyone is interested, the recipe came out rather well baked in a half sheet pan. I used a Thai (CORRECTED) rice flour.

The finished product is very similar to the usual biscuit roulade recipe I use, maybe a tad sweeter. I did not notice any crunchiness, although the top crust may have been slightly meringue-like. Surprisingly, I could not detect the taste of rice flour, although I haven't done a direct comparison.

The cake also rolls well, so it has been turned into a roulade fillled with walnuts and mascarpone dulce de luche cream. I like the recipe enough to try a chocolate version and some other variations.

Edited March 24, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[ludja]

Thanks for reporting on your experience, sanrensho. I recently bought this book but haven't cooked out of it yet so it's helpful to hear of successful recipes.

[sanrensho]

Thanks for reporting on your experience, sanrensho.  I recently bought this book but haven't cooked out of it yet so it's helpful to hear of successful recipes.

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Your welcome. Maybe the book deserves a thread of its own? (There is one other thread HERE, but mostly focusing on pans.)

I'm mainly focusing on components, so I plan to try the coffee buttercream and at least a few of the base cake recipes.

Edited March 24, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[rickster]

FWIW, there is a fromage blanc cheese cake with a cherry jam layer in the book.that got raves when I made it. I've also liked the joconde and french buttercream recipes as well.

[sanrensho]

FWIW, there is a fromage blanc cheese cake with a cherry jam layer in the book.that got raves when I made it. I've also liked the joconde and french buttercream recipes as well.

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Rick, thanks for the suggestions. I'll definitely bookmark them.

Update on the trois freres cake: The next day, I found the sponge to have a bit of a powdery aftertaste and the taste of the rice flour was noticeable (to me). The sponge sheet was also fragile (prone to cracking), so it would be a good idea to roll this cake on the day of baking. Oh well, on to the buttercream recipes...

[helenjp]

Rice flours - I did an experiment a while back to see if there was much difference and found HUGE differences. I would expect a cake baked with a coarser flour to turn out a near failure, from my experience with shortbreads.

The healthfood type of ground rice/rice flour you mention is the coarsest and grittiest, and absorbs the least moisture.

This is followed the various Chinese or SE Asian/Japanese traditional rice flours.

The finest I found was a rice flour developed especially for cakes and cookies etc. This was much finer than even the traditional Chinese etc. rice flours, even though these feel quite fine to the touch. The cake-baking rice flour I tried was called Riz Farine.

Edited March 27, 2006 by helenjp (log)

[sanrensho]

The finest I found was a rice flour developed especially for cakes and cookies etc. This was much finer than even the traditional Chinese etc. rice flours, even though these feel quite fine to the touch. The cake-baking rice flour I tried was called Riz Farine.

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In my case, the use of a Thai rice flour was based on directions from the book, which suggested using rice flour available from Asian sources.

In your experiments, did you notice the same "rice flour" taste that I did?

[helenjp]

rice flour taste - not really, because I was using the rice flour in combination with ordinary flour...sorry.