Italian Lady Fingers Savoiardi Recipes

LADY FINGER COOKIES (SICILIAN SAVOIARDI COOKIES)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350ºF.
• Place sugar in a blender or food processor and process for about 15 seconds until a fine consistency. Sugar will be slightly powdered.
• Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. Using a mixer bowl, beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed for 8 minutes, until thick and pale.
• Gradually beat in oil until incorporated. Beat in vanilla on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop mixer to scrape the sides of bowl.
• Add flour and continue to beat for 1 to 2 minutes, until batter is smooth, stopping mixer to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl.
• Grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
• Spoon batter into pastry bag and pipe 3 1/2-inch logs onto the baking sheet about 1-inch apart.
• Sprinkle the cookies with some confectioner's sugar over the ladyfingers and wait 3 minutes. The sugar will glisten. Dust on another portion of confectioner's sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
• Bake in batches(slide the first sheet into the oven as soon as you've piped), for 7 to 8 minutes, until they puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
• Cool completely on the sheets on a cooling rack, and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula (or pry off the parchment, if using). Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before serving.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE LADYFINGERS | AUTHENTIC ITALIAN SAVOIARDI RECIPE

Steps:

• Separate the yolks from the whites. Put the first ones aside and, with the help of an electric stand mixer or an electric hand whisk, whisk the egg whites for a few minutes at maximum speed. When the whites start to get stiff, add the sugar. Keep to beat the egg whites until you get a very firm, shiny and hard meringue.
• Beat the egg yolks with a fork and add them to the whipped egg whites, stirring with a spatula, moving from the bottom upwards.
• Add the sifted flour and potato starch, together with the lemon peel or other flavoring of your choice (optional), and mix until you get a homogeneous mixture.
• Place the mixture in a pastry bag with a smooth and wide tip, and form sticks of about 10/12 cm (about 4/5 inch) on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. During cooking the ladyfingers will expand and swell a little, so it's important that they are spaced apart on the baking sheet. Sprinkle Savoiardi ladyfingers first with the granulated sugar and then with the icing sugar.
• Bake at 200 °C (390 F) for 7 minutes. Open to let the steam out and cook for another 2 minutes. Let them cool well before using your homemade Ladyfingers for your recipes.

SAVOIARDI I

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line three jelly roll pans with parchment paper. Prepare a pastry bag with a size 6 tip (1/2 inch).
• Separate the eggs. Whisk the egg yolks with 1/2 of the sugar and all of the vanilla. Beat until very light colored. This will take about 5 minutes.
• In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. While beating, slowly add the salt and the remaining sugar until combined. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.
• Sift the flour over the egg mixture and gently fold it in.
• Fill the pastry with half of the batter and pipe 3 1/2 inch fingers, 1 1/2 inches apart, in rows on the parchment paper. Continue with the second half of the batter in the same manner.
• Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 15 minutes until firm to the touch and golden. Remove the paper and fingers from the baking sheet and place on racks to cool. After cooling, remove fingers from the paper and use, or store between layers of wax paper in a airtight container. These freeze well.

SAVOIARDI (ITALIAN LADYFINGERS)

Steps:

• Separate eggs into two separate bowls, making sure not to get ANY yolk into the bowls containing the whites.
• Beat egg whites on high speed until foamy.
• Add two tablespoons of the 2/3 cup of sugar to the egg whites and continue to beat until stiff peaks form, and set aside.
• In a separate bowl, Add vanilla and the rest of the sugar to the egg yolks and beat until pale yellow, set aside.
• Sift together the flour and baking powder together (I didn't want to dirty another bowl so I sifted onto a piece of waxed paper).
• Gently fold half of the egg whites into the yolks.
• Fold the flour mixture into the yolks.
• Fold the rest of the egg whites into the yolks.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Load batter into a pastry bag with a wide tip, or a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off.
• Pipe onto a greased cookie sheet in any shape you'd like (traditionally, they are shaped like fingers, about as wide as your pointer and middle finger put together).
• Bake for 6 minutes, or until edges are just golden brown.