Last night I tried making the golden genoise for the first time.  I had an 8 in springform, and a 10 in springform, but not a 9 in springform.  I went with the 10 inch, so my cake was thinner than it was supposed to be.  I also think my oven bakes unevenly.  I usually try to compensate for this by turning a cake halfway though baking, but since the recipe said not to open the oven door, I didn’t.  My cake ended up 1 inch high on one side, and 1 1/2 inch on the other.  Any advice if I should try this again?  Should I use the 8 inch springform, or a 9 inch regular pan?  I also used cake strips, and I’m not sure if you are supposed to with a springform, since they don’t touch the pan where the latch is, maybe that caused some of the unevenness?

Wow, that’s a big difference from one side to the other!  I’m not sure what to say, it’s hard to rotate a sponge cake without it falling.  Might be worth trying it without the strips if they weren’t covering part of the pan- when I use strips on a springform, I use one (homemade) large enough to cover everything. 

If the problem is severe hot/cold areas of the oven, you could try lining it with ceramic tiles to help even out the heat.

Since this is a sponge cake, small changes in pan size aren’t as important as they are with a butter cake, I think you can probably pick any reasonable pan that will fit all the batter (or scale the recipe up or down).

sponge cakes can take any widths but not any heights.  a 9” batter baked on a 10” means the pan is way too underfilled and the bare metal will overheat
thus setting the cake sides too fast and uneven.

Good point, Hector, I was getting a little sloppy there.

MaryH, if your 8” springform is 3” tall, then use that as it has nearly the same capacity as a 9 x 2.5” pan.  If your 8” springform is 2.5” tall, then scale the recipe down a bit.  If you mutliply everything by 0.81, that will work for an 8 x 2.5” pan.  If you don’t want to scale the recipe, you can make cupcakes or try a parchment collar for your 9” pan.  Your layer should be close to 2” tall.

thx Julie. u r great.  c, sponge cakes that dont use baking powder for leavening, rely on climbing up the pan sides to rise.  if too much bare metal, will be too hot.  the cake sides will set or burn too fast.  rising happens best while the cake remains unset.