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Lady Fingers
Prepare the desired quantity of flour and butter in the following proportions: Half a pound of butter to every three pounds of flour, and rub well together, adding half a pound of fine sugar, with about thirty drops of essence of lemon; mix with milk into a firm dough, and place in a cloth for half an hour to settle before using. Beat with a rolling-pin until quite smooth, roll out thin and cut into strips, and cut these strips into five-inch lengths.
A hotel-scale formula written for a baker who already knew what to do with it: the original gives no baking temperature, no baking time, and no quantity of milk. Everything below is about filling those gaps and shrinking the batch.
- This is not the piped spongeModern lady fingers (savoiardi) are an egg-foam batter piped through a bag. Oscar's version is a lean rolled dough with no eggs at all, closer to a shortbread finger or a plain tea biscuit. Judge the result on those terms.
- Scale it downThree pounds of flour is roughly 11 cups and will make many dozen fingers. A sixth of the recipe -- 8 oz (about 1 3/4 cups) flour, 1 1/3 oz butter, 1 1/3 oz sugar, 5 drops of lemon -- is a sensible domestic batch.
- Essence of lemonIn 1896 this meant oil of lemon cut with alcohol, and strengths varied by supplier. Modern lemon extract is not the same thing and lemon oil is stronger still; start with about a third of a teaspoon of extract per three pounds of flour, or use the grated zest of two lemons instead, and taste the raw dough.
- Fine sugarProbably superfine or caster, though in this period 'fine' could also simply mean well-refined sugar. In so lean a dough granulated sugar may not fully dissolve and can leave a gritty texture.
- The milk is up to youNo quantity is given because the baker was told to make a firm dough. Add milk a spoonful at a time until the mass just coheres and cleans the bowl -- it should be stiffer than pie dough, not soft or tacky.
- Rest, then beatThe half hour under a cloth lets the dough settle and the flour hydrate; the beating with the rolling-pin that follows is there to work the dough smooth and even before rolling.
- Rolling and cuttingThin means about 1/8 inch. Cut strips roughly 3/4 inch wide, then into five-inch lengths, and dock them with a fork so they stay flat.
- Baking, which the recipe omitsThe original gives no oven instruction whatever. About 375F for eight to ten minutes on a lined sheet, until the edges are pale gold and the centres dry; they crisp as they cool.
Lady fingers are often said to take their name from their shape and their delicacy, and the classic version is generally traced to the ducal court of Savoy, which is why Italians still call them savoiardi and the French biscuits à la cuiller -- spoon biscuits, from the days before piping bags, when the batter was shaped with two spoons. By the time Oscar Tschirky compiled this book at the Waldorf in the 1890s, the fingers were a workhorse of the hotel pastry department: they lined charlotte moulds and propped up trifles and bavarois. The proportions here are given in pounds rather than cups, and the instructions stop at the cutting board. The rolled, eggless dough is cheaper and sturdier than the sponge, and better suited to a biscuit meant to stand up in a mould for a day.