Ladyfingers

Ladyfingers are dry, airy cakes, often with a sugary crust, which are made by piping a stiffly whipped egg-and-flour batter into diminutive oblongs. The sponge batter used for ladyfingers was developed in Europe by the seventeenth century to produce Naples or Savoy biscuits. Introduced to colonial America under those names, the cakes often were baked in specially designed tins or paper cases of varying sizes and shapes. The term “ladies’ fingers” was used in America no later than the 1820s, although recipes continue for Savoy biscuits, in which one puts the batter “into the biscuit funnel, and lay it out about the length and size of your finger.”