Creaming can be overdone, yes. It's best not to use a speed any higher than medium for this, and watch the mixture to see when it turns from yellow to white. Once the color lightens, you're done. It's nearly impossible to add eggs to creamed butter and sugar without the mixture breaking as you describe. I've found that adding a tablespoon or two of the dry ingredients after each egg helps to prevent this. Genoise is a cake that relies on steam for its rise; it's natural that it will shrink from the edge of the pan as it cools, because the air pockets the steam creates contract. The best thing you can do is run a thin-bladed spatula around the edge of the pan as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, to release it from the edge. That way, as it cools and shrinks, the sides will do so evenly. Susan

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