Savoy Biscuits
INGREDIENTS for 2 dozen cakes.-6 oz. of flour, 6 oz. of sugar, 4 eggs, the rind of 1 lemon. AVERAGE COST, 7d.
Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs; beat the former well, add to them the sugar and grated lemon-rind, and beat for 15 minutes; then slowly dredge in the flour, and, after the whites have been whisked to a solid froth, add them, and beat for another 5 minutes. It is better for one person to beat the whites while another is blending the other ingredients. When ready, draw the cake in strips the length of a Savoy biscuit upon thick cartridge paper, and bake in a rather hot oven. They must be carefully watched, as they soon scorch, when their appearance is spoilt for using for Charlotte russe or other sweet fancy dishes.
TIME.-5 to 8 minutes in a quick oven.
SEASONABLE at any time. the citron. Butter some patty-pans and put in the mixture, and bake for 15 minutes.
TIME.-15 minutes to bake.
SEASONABLE at any time.
These are ladyfingers — a plain whisked sponge with no leavening but air, piped into fingers and baked fast. Two things decide whether they work: how much air survives the folding, and how closely you watch the oven.
- The hinge: do not walk awayIn a hot oven a tray of these colours very fast at the end. Beeton's warning about scorching is the whole point of the recipe — burnt fingers look wrong lining a charlotte and taste of it too. She allows only 5 to 8 minutes, so start checking early.
- "A rather hot" or "quick" ovenRoughly 400-425F, though Victorian oven descriptions have no exact modern equivalent. A lower setting gives a paler, more even biscuit, worth trying if yours are browning before they set.
- Cartridge paperThick drawing paper. Baking parchment does the same job better and releases without the old trick of damping the underside of the paper.
- Fifteen minutes of beatingThat figure assumes a hand whisk and a strong arm. In a stand mixer the yolks, sugar and lemon rind reach the pale ribbon stage in about five minutes on high; the whites need a firm, glossy peak that holds its shape, which is what Beeton means by "a solid froth."
- Folding, not beatingThe instruction to beat five minutes after adding the whites will flatten a modern mixture. Dredge the flour over in two or three additions and fold with a spatula until just combined — the batter should still hold a ribbon.
- Piping instead of drawing"Draw the cake in strips" means pipe. A plain half-inch nozzle and fingers about four inches long, well spaced, gives roughly the stated two dozen. A dusting of caster sugar just before baking produces the pearled crust of a commercial boudoir biscuit.
- Quantities6 oz flour is about 1 1/3 cups; 6 oz sugar about 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons. Use eggs of about 2 oz each — much larger and the batter will spread.
- The stray endingThe last two sentences — citron, patty-pans, fifteen minutes — belong to a different recipe that has run on in the printing. Ignore them.
- KeepingCool on the paper, then store airtight. For a charlotte russe they are better a day old and slightly dry, since fresh ones collapse when they take up the cream.
Savoy biscuits — biscuits à la cuiller in French, ladyfingers in most English-speaking kitchens now — are traditionally traced to the court of the Dukes of Savoy, though the attribution is old cookery lore rather than documented fact. What is certain is that by the nineteenth century they were a staple of the professional pastry kitchen, valued less as something to eat on their own than as building material: Beeton's note that a scorched biscuit is "spoilt for using for Charlotte russe" tells you exactly what they were for. The charlotte russe, a mould lined with these fingers and filled with bavarian cream, is generally credited to Antonin Carême in the early 1800s, and its popularity in Victorian dining kept the biscuit in constant demand. The recipe also shows how an egg-raised sponge was managed before mechanical mixers — the suggestion that two people work at once, one whisking whites while the other blends, is a glimpse of a kitchen with staff in it.