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Vanilla Biscuits
Beat the yolks of half a dozen eggs with one-half pound of finely-powdered sugar and a small quantity of grated lemon-peel. Beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth and stir them lightly in with the beaten yolks; dredge in one-half pound of flour, and flavor with a little essence of vanilla, and then work it until quite smooth. Lay the mixture out in rounds on foolscap paper, using a biscuit-forcer for the purpose; dust them over with vanilla sugar, and bake in a quick oven. When cooked, take the biscuits and join them together in pairs.
This is a piped sponge biscuit — the same batter family as ladyfingers — written for a hotel pastry department that assumed a piping bag and a hot oven were already at hand. Two things decide whether it works: how gently the flour goes in, and how briefly it bakes.
- The hinge: do not actually "work it until quite smooth"Taken literally that instruction will knock the air out of the whites and give you flat, leathery discs. Fold the whites into the yolk-sugar base and sift the flour over in two or three additions, cutting and folding just until no dry streaks remain.
- WeightsHalf a pound of sugar is 8 oz, about 1 1/8 cups of caster or superfine sugar; half a pound of flour is 8 oz, roughly 1 3/4 cups spooned and levelled. Weigh both if you can — the batter is close to equal weights of egg, sugar and flour, though six eggs run somewhat heavier than 8 oz, and it tolerates little drift.
- "Finely-powdered sugar"In this period that means granulated sugar ground fine, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Caster sugar is the right substitute; it dissolves into the yolks without leaving grit.
- Essence of vanillaRead as vanilla extract, 1 to 2 teaspoons. Vanilla sugar for dusting is simply sugar stored with a split pod for a week or two, or caster sugar rubbed with scraped seeds.
- Foolscap paper and the biscuit-forcerFoolscap was a size of ordinary writing paper, used here simply as a liner; use parchment. A biscuit-forcer was a syringe-type tool or bag fitted with a nozzle; a piping bag with a plain round tip of about 1/2 inch does the same job — pipe rounds or fingers with a good inch between them, since the batter spreads.
- "A quick oven"A quick oven is generally read as somewhere around 400–425F, which suits these only if they are small and watched closely; 400F for 8 to 12 minutes is the safer reading. They are done when set and pale gold at the edges, still soft in the centre.
- Joining in pairsNo filling is specified. The flat undersides can be pressed together while the biscuits are still warm and slightly tacky, so they hold to each other. Jam or buttercream works if you prefer, but wait until they are cold.
- YieldSix eggs' worth of batter gives roughly 40 to 48 piped rounds of 1 1/2 inches, so 20 to 24 finished pairs, depending on your piping.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) collected the working repertoire of the Waldorf's kitchens, and this is a straightforward hotel version of the sponge biscuit that European pastry cooks knew as biscuit à la cuiller — the ladyfinger — and the reason such biscuits turn up lining charlottes and trifles rather than sitting alone on a plate. The technique of whipping yolks with sugar, folding in a separate meringue and dredging in flour predates chemical leavening entirely; eggs are the only lift. Piping through a "forcer" onto paper is the method given, and joining the halves in pairs is often said to be a way of squaring up a biscuit that bakes with one flat face and one domed one. Vanilla sugar, made by keeping pods in a sugar canister, is generally described as a professional economy, the pods being too costly to use once and discard.