No. 3341

Cats' Tongues with Butter

Langues de Chat au Beurre

Work ten ounces of butter to a cream with eight ounces of sugar and two ounces of vanilla sugar (No. 3165); add slowly eight egg-whites and finally eight ounces of flour. Range this paste on a slightly buttered baking sheet in the shape of three-inch length biscuits, keeping them at a short distance from each other; bake in a hot oven.

← No. 3340 Butter Patiences Tea Cakes No. 3342 Cats' Tongues with Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives quantities and nothing else, which is typical of The Epicurean — the piping, spacing and timing were assumed knowledge. The batter is straightforward; the difficulty is entirely in the baking.

The hinge: watch the edges, not the clockLangues de chat are done when the outer rim has browned and the center is still pale. That happens in five to eight minutes, and the window between pale-rimmed and burnt is under a minute. Bake one sheet at a time and stay with it.
"A hot oven"Ranhofer gives no temperature; 400-425F is a reasonable modern approximation. His ranges were coal-fired and judged by hand, so any figure here is a guess at his intent.
Weights in modern terms10 oz butter is about 285 g (2½ sticks), 8 oz sugar about 225 g (1 generous cup), 8 oz flour about 225 g (1¾ cups). Eight egg whites run 230-250 g. Weigh rather than measure — the whole thing depends on ratio.
Vanilla sugarThe recipe cross-refers to his No. 3165, which is not reproduced here. Substitute 2 oz (55 g) granulated sugar that has sat with a split bean for a week, or add the scraped seeds of one bean plus 2 oz sugar to the main quantity.
Adding the whites"Slowly" is the operative word. Unwhipped whites dumped into creamed butter will break the emulsion; add them a spoonful at a time, beating until each is absorbed, and stop as soon as the flour disappears.
ShapingUse a piping bag with a plain ¼-inch tip, laying 3-inch strips. This batter is rich and spreads to roughly double its piped width, so leave a full 2 inches between them — Ranhofer's "short distance" was optimistic.
The baking sheet"Slightly buttered" is what he asks for; parchment is better and gives a cleaner release. Lift them off with a thin palette knife the moment they leave the oven, while still pliable.
Yield and keepingYield depends on how large they are piped; this quantity of batter makes many dozens. They crisp as they cool and go soft within a day in humid air, so store airtight with a tight lid, or re-crisp briefly in a low oven.

A Little History

Langue de chat — cat's tongue — is a purely descriptive name for the long, flat, rounded-end shape the batter takes as it spreads, and the form is old enough in French pâtisserie that no single inventor is credibly attached to it. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), files it among the tea cakes alongside butter patiences and a cream version, the sort of thin dry biscuit sent out with ices, sweet wine or after-dinner coffee rather than eaten on its own. The pairing is functional: a wafer this brittle exists to be dipped or to give texture beside something soft, and the same logic survives in the boxed langues de chat still sold in France today.