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Lady's Fingers
One and one-eighth pound of flour, one of powdered sugar, ten eggs; beat eggs and sugar as light as for sponge-cake; sift in with flour one tea-spoon baking-powder and stir slowly. Make a funnelshaped bag of heavy ticking or strong brown paper; through the hole in the small end push a funnel-shaped tin tube, one-third inch in diameter at small end and provided with a flange at the other to prevent it from slipping quite through; tie the small end of bag firmly around the tube, and you have a funnel-shaped sack with a firm nozzle projecting slightly from the small end. Into this bag pour the batter, over which gather up the bag tightly so that none will run out, press and run the dough out quickly through the tube into a pan lined with light brown paper (not buttered), making each about a finger long, and about as thick as a lead-pencil, being careful not to get them too wide. Sprinkle with granulated sugar, bake in a quick oven, and, when cool, wet the under side of the paper with a brush, remove and stick the fingers together back to back. The bag, when made of ticking, will be useful in making macaroons and other small cakes. Unsurpassed. -Charles W. Cyphers,
A full-size professional batch of savoiardi, written before piping bags were something you bought. Scale it down and the method holds up exactly.
- Scale it downTen eggs with over a pound each of flour and sugar yields something like 100-120 fingers. A fifth of the recipe — 2 eggs, about 3.5 oz flour, 3 oz sugar, a pinch of baking powder — gives two dozen and fits a home mixer.
- "Powdered sugar" in 1880"Powdered sugar" in the 1880s -- This means granulated sugar ground fine, not modern confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch. Use superfine (caster) sugar; ordinary granulated works if you beat long enough to dissolve it.
- The hinge: beat the eggs to the ribbonEverything depends on the aeration. Whole eggs and sugar beaten "as light as for sponge-cake" means pale, tripled in volume, and falling from the whisk in a ribbon that holds several seconds. The baking powder is insurance, not lift.
- Fold, do not stir"Stir slowly" is a warning. Sift the flour over in three additions and fold with a spatula until barely combined; overworking deflates the batter and the fingers spread flat.
- The improvised bagA ticking cone with a tin tube tied in is a piping bag with a plain round tip. The recipe's tube is one-third inch across at the small end; any bag with a plain round tip of about that size does the same job. Pipe fingers about 3 inches long and pencil-thick, spaced an inch apart — they spread.
- Paper, not butterSubstitute parchment for the light brown paper. The recipe specifies the lining is not buttered; an ungreased surface plausibly gives the batter something to grip. The trick of brushing the underside of the paper with water to release the cakes is unnecessary with parchment.
- Oven temperatureA "quick oven" in books of this period is usually taken as roughly 400-425F, which is hot for these. 400F for 8-10 minutes gives pale gold fingers that are dry at the edge and still tender inside; longer and they turn to biscuit.
- The sugar coatingSprinkle granulated sugar over the piped fingers and let it sit a minute before baking, then tip off the excess. This gives the pearled, crackled top of a proper savoiardi.
- Sticking them back to backThe recipe has you join the cooled fingers by their flat sides, a form in which ladyfingers were often presented. Skip it if you intend to use them for a charlotte or trifle, where single fingers line the mold.
Ladyfingers — savoiardi in Italian, boudoirs or biscuits à la cuiller in French — are among the older pastries in the European repertoire, traditionally traced to the court of Savoy and made before piping bags existed by spooning batter onto paper, which is what the French name records. In an American household of the 1880s their purpose was often structural: they lined charlotte russe molds, propped up trifles, and were served alongside ice cream and wine jellies at receptions. The most interesting thing in the entry is the paragraph on constructing a piping bag out of bed ticking and a tin funnel, and the note that it will keep for macaroons afterward — a cook who wanted one could evidently make it at home. The attribution to Charles W. Cyphers is typical of The Dixie Cook-Book, which gathered contributions from named local cooks, caterers and confectioners rather than presenting a single authorial voice.