Savoy-biscuit Paste

Pâte à Biscuit de Savoie (Savoy-biscuit paste) teaches the cleanest lesson in sponge work: air is the leavening, and every bit of height comes from the ribboned yolks and stiff whites you build with your own whisk. There is no baking powder, no butter in the paste, and nowhere for careless folding to hide. When it is right, the cake rises tall and butter-gold from the mold, with a pale crumb so fine and dry it seems to dissolve on the tongue.

The original assumed a fourteen-egg basin, several molds, and a regular moderate oven judged by a practiced hand. For one cook, one stove, one evening, the formula becomes four eggs in one 8-inch mold and a measured 325°F oven. The proportions and sequence remain intact. Brigade volume is scaffolding and can go; the ribbon, equal weights of flour and fécule de pomme de terre (potato starch), and stiff whites folded last are the dish and must stay.

Pâte à Génoise Fine (No. 2376) is the book's cross-reference for recognizing the ribbon stage, not a batter to add here. Your yolk mixture must fall from the beater in a broad ribbon that rests visibly before sinking back. After that, the fold decides everything: loosen the thick base with some white, lift the remainder through gently, and send the filled mold straight to the oven.