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Dessert

Savory Biscuits or Lady Fingers

A sweet biscuit made from sugar, flour, and eggs, baked into finger-shaped pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Savory Biscuits or Lady Fingers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Put nine tablespoonfuls of fine white sugar into a bowl and place the bowl in hot water to heat the sugar.

  2. When the sugar is thoroughly heated, break nine eggs into the bowl and beat them quickly until they become a little warm and rather thick.

  3. Take the bowl from the water and continue beating until it is nearly or quite cold.

  4. Stir in lightly nine tablespoonfuls of sifted flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Using a paper funnel or similar, lay the mixture out upon papers in biscuits three inches long and half an inch thick, in the form of fingers.

  2. Sift sugar over the biscuits and bake them on tins until a light brown color.

  3. When they are done and cold, remove them from the papers by wetting them on the back.

  4. Dry them and they are ready for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten with warm sugar, they trap air that gives the biscuits their light, airy structure.
Fine white sugar
Heated and beaten with the eggs, it helps build a thick foam and adds sweetness and browning.
Sifted flour
Lightly stirred in, it provides the starch that sets the batter into a firm, dry biscuit.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour lightly. Overmixing knocks out the air trapped in the beaten eggs and sugar, so the biscuits turn dense instead of light and spongy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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