Skip to main content
Dessert

Biscuits a LA Cuillier--lady Fingers

A light, sweet biscuit made with egg yolks, egg whites, powdered sugar, and flour, piped into finger shapes and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Biscuits a LA Cuillier--lady Fingers

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix 6 egg yolks with 6 ounces of powdered sugar until foamy.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon or vanilla extract for flavor.

  3. Whip 6 egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the yolk mixture.

  4. Incorporate 5 ounces of sifted flour carefully until well mixed.

Shape and bake

  1. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a round tube (½ inch in diameter) with the mixture.

  2. Pipe the mixture onto parchment paper in finger shapes about 3 inches long.

  3. Dust with powdered sugar and place on a baking sheet.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 12 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour 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

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air that gives the biscuits their light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Beaten with sugar, they add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the piped shapes once baked.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and, dusted on top, adds a light sweet crust.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whites are full of trapped air, and folding gently keeps that air in the batter. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving the biscuits flat and dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes