SC - [Fwd: A question.]-OOP

[LrdRas@aol.com]

"Michael F. Gunter" wrote:
> 
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: A question.
> Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 09:17:20 -0000
> From: "Rachel" <rachel at witchwood.prestel.co.uk>
> To: <owner-sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> 
> Hello,
<snip>
> I am looking for a recipe for Lady's Finger that came from around the
> 1920's can anyone help?
> 
> Thanks
> Rachel

I was surprised to find no lady finger recipes in several of the sources
I just assumed would have them: the Larousse Gastronomique, Paula Peck's
"Art of Fine Baking", Escoffier, etc. I did, however, find a recipe in
"The Joy of Cooking", and thought perhaps either lady fingers had come
into being some time between the 1930's (the era of the original JoC)
and '60's, or they'd been known by another name. I did, however find
some recipes in another, older source, which seems to suggest lady
fingers and their ilk are in some kind of transitional stage at this
time. Certainly they predate all the American
cream-cake-with-baking-powder stuff, but, again, may have been known by
another name, as they bear a strong resemblance to other, similar cakes
such as langues-du-chat and various other Petits Fours Moelleux (soft
fancy cakes, as opposed to harder ones like biscotti).  

>From "The Epicurean" by Charles Ranhofer (one of the great Delmonico's
chefs), publ. R. Ranhofer, New York, 1893:

"(3376) LADY'S BOUCHEES WITH STRAWBERRIES OR RASPBERRIES (Bouchees de
Dames a la Fraise ou a la Framboise).

	Make a little very firm lady finger preparation (No. 3377); lay it
through a pocket on paper in small inch and a quarter rounds and bake
them in a moderate oven. As soon as done and cold detach from the paper
and hollow each one slightly; fill up this empty space with strawberry
or raspberry marmalade (No. 3695) and fasten two together; cover with a
light layer of the marmalade and glaze with raspberry fondant (No. 58).

(3377) LADY FINGERS (Biscuits a la Cuiller).

	Separate the whites from twenty eggs and pour them into a basin; leave
the yolks in another vessel; to these yolks add a pound of powdered
sugar, part of it being flavored with vanilla (No. 3165) and beat up to
make a very light preparation; then put in one pound of sifted flour and
the twenty whites beaten to a stiff froth, stirring the whole lightly
together. Pour a part of this preparation into a pocket furnished with a
half-inch diameter  socket and through it push biscuits four and a half
inches in length, keeping them slightly apart and laying them on sheets
of paper; bestrew with powdered sugar; put on a baking sheet and leave
stand a moment until the sugar begins to dissolve, then push it into a
moderate oven. As soon as they are of a light golden color and the crust
begins to harden remove them at once from the oven and from the baking
sheet, then range them on a table till cold.

	Another Recipe is one pound of sugar, twelve eggs, half a pound of
flour, a grain of salt, greated zest or a spoonful of orange flower water."

My notes: First, I think you'll find that the kind of things lady
fingers are often used for today, such as charlottes and trifles, were
generally made with sponge cake until fairly recently. Technically, lady
fingers _are_ sponge cake, but the commercially prepared item seems to
have supplanted genoise sponge cake as the standard item, either made
inhouse or purchased, plain, from the baker, and cut to shape and size
as per the given recipe. This seems to suggest to me that lady fingers
_might_ not be as old as some other forms of sponge cake, or that they
weren't used as they often are today. Or, they may have been one of
several types of sponge cake used to make various pudding bases and
such, or perhaps they simply were eaten out of hand and called by
another name. In any case, the recipe from 1893 doesn't seem all that
different from the recipe in The Joy Of Cooking (both are an egg-raised,
chemical-leaven-free sponge, piped biscuit), so I think it highly likely
that this recipe is the type of lady finger you'd have found in the
1920's. Second, a pocket is a pastry bag, just in case anyone wondered.
The book actually gives a picture...

Hope this does it for you!     

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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