Baking Class Seventeen: Biscuits and Ladyfingers

Our last two lab classes were another two-part series. In this class, we baked the lady fingers for the tiramisu and the sheet cake and Italian buttercream for the yule log. Assembly will be the following day.

Ladyfinger Sponge Formula

Egg yolks	6 oz
Sugar	3 oz
Egg whites	9 oz
Sugar	5 oz
Lemon juice	¼ t
Pastry flour	10 oz

Separate egg sponge method to make this recipe. Take your egg yolks and sugar and put in a stainless steel bowl over a water bath. Whip until warm. Then, put in a mixer with the whip attachment and beat on high speed until light and thick. Now, whip the egg whites, sugar, and lemon juice until you get firm, moist peaks. Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture, alternating with the flour. So, bit of egg white then bit of flour, bit of egg white… you get the idea.

Now, stick the batter in a pastry bag and pipe with a plain tip. You’ll need two rounds and a number of fingers across the bottom. Pipe them out on to parchment paper (and put a few dollops in each corner so the parchment doesn’t blow up and stick to the top of your fingers whilst in the oven.

Yes, the ladyfingers are not elegant. But the rounds came out OK.

Dust with powdered sugar. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes.

See, the perfection of my ladyfinger round?

For the yule log, we used the creamed yellow cake recipe from the previous day. Instead of putting it in a round, we used a half sheet pan.

Yellow cake in sheet form

 

Formulas from the fifth edition of “Professional Baking” by Wayne Gisslen.

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