No. 3231

Savoy Biscuit

Biscuit de Savoie

Grease a high biscuit mold with melted prepared veal kidney suet; drain off any surplus fat by reversing the mold, then glaze with sugar icing and fecula, half of each. Pour into a vessel one pound of powdered sugar flavored with vanilla (No. 3165) and a pinch of salt, add fourteen egg-yolks one at a time and beat the whole forcibly to have it get quite frothy; whip fourteen egg-whites to a stiff froth, and put a fourth part into the yolks, also six ounces of potato fecula and six ounces of flour, the two latter to be sifted together. As soon as the whole is thoroughly combined add the remainder of the beaten whites. With this fill the mold three-quarters full and stand it on a baking pan; fix it so that the mold will not fall; place it carefully in the mildest spot in the oven. In order to bake this biscuit properly it is essential that the oven be first thoroughly heated, then allowed to fall to a mild temperature; leave it in for two and a quarter to two and a half hours. When done to perfection unmold on a grate, cool, pare very straight and dress on a dish; surround the base with a circle of lady bouchees iced with vanilla (No. 3376).

← No. 3230 Mousseline Biscuit Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3232 Breton Cake →

For the Modern Kitchen

A very large fatless sponge — a pound of sugar and twenty-eight eggs' worth of structure — baked slowly in a tall mold. The whole thing stands or falls on how the whites are folded in and how gently it bakes.

The hinge: two-stage foldingA quarter of the whites goes in first to loosen the dense yolk-sugar foam, then the starches, then the rest of the whites. Reversing that order deflates the batter, and there is no baking powder here to rescue it.
FeculaPotato fecula is potato starch, sold as such today. Six ounces of it with six ounces of flour gives the dry, fine, almost powdery crumb characteristic of a Savoy biscuit; cornstarch is the nearest substitute if potato starch is unavailable.
Greasing with veal kidney suetRendered kidney suet sets firm and is fairly neutral in flavor, which may be why it was chosen; Ranhofer does not say. Softened butter followed by a half-sugar, half-potato-starch dusting does the same job. "Sugar icing" here appears to mean finely powdered sugar rather than a poured glaze.
Vanilla sugarNo. 3165 is Ranhofer's vanilla-flavored powdered sugar; the method itself is not reproduced here. A tablespoon of vanilla extract beaten into the yolks is the practical equivalent, though it wets the batter slightly.
Oven temperature"Thoroughly heated, then allowed to fall to a mild temperature" describes managing a masonry or coal oven. In a modern oven, preheat to about 350F, put the cake in, and drop immediately to 300F, keeping the mold away from direct bottom heat.
TimeThe recipe's own two and a quarter to two and a half hours suits a cooling brick oven and a mold this deep. In a modern oven holding a steady 300F it may well be done sooner; begin testing with a skewer to the center well before the stated time, looking for a cake that is dry, springy, and pulling slightly from the mold.
The moldA "high biscuit mold" is a tall, straight-sided or fluted tube mold, roughly 3 to 4 quarts here. Filling only three-quarters full matters — this batter climbs. Unmold onto a rack promptly or steam will soften the crust.
Yield and finishingThis is a party cake and will serve a large table. "Pare very straight" means trimming the cake neat and even before dressing it. The lady bouchées (No. 3376) are small iced cakes set in a circle round the base.

A Little History

Biscuit de Savoie is traditionally traced to the court of Savoy in the fourteenth century, where a cook to Amadeus VI is said to have built a light cake for a visiting emperor — a story repeated in pastry books far more often than it is documented. What is certain is that by the eighteenth century the Savoy biscuit was the standard European example of a sponge raised by eggs alone, and the recipe here is a professional's version of it: no butter, no chemical leavening, half the flour replaced by potato starch to keep the crumb dry enough to serve with ices, creams, and fruit. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, printed it in The Epicurean (1894) among the "large cakes for entremets" — cakes meant to arrive whole at table late in a long dinner, dressed on a dish and surrounded with small iced pastries. The instruction to heat the oven hard and then let it fall is the clearest trace of the equipment he worked with: a brick oven had no thermostat, only a falling curve of stored heat that a pastry cook learned to read.</body>