Le Pain de Gênes

The Original, Simple, Delicious French Almond Cake

The moist, tender richness of pain de Gênes, its moelleux, comes from finely ground almonds. Pain de Gênes is all about almonds, although the cake has butter, sugar, eggs, and a little flour, too. When it first cools, the edge has an appealing crunch. The day you bake it is the time to eat it.

I began thinking about pain de Gênes when my friend James MacGuire told me he served it at his former restaurant in Montreal, following the recipe in Paul Bocuse’s first cookbook. “In the early days,” James said, “it was useful as a midday dessert or especially on a busy evening when we were running out of desserts. It takes five minutes to put together in a food processor and 20 minutes or less to bake — could be served with fruit, a crème anglaise, or a chocolate sauce.” He explained, “Over time, I began to wonder about possible improvements. The original seemed a bit too cakey, so I reduced the amount of flour (other recipes use starch, not good).” But the cake depends on flour for its structure and you can go too far: “I once didn’t add enough flour and it fell during baking.”