The Hunt for Savoiardis

Round 2

I tried my hand at making Savoiardis again today, and again I was defeated.  Savoiardis 2 - Me 0.  I’m happy to say that I’ve made progress, but I still have a long way to go.  This time around, they actually started to look more like bakery Savoiardis.  The shape was right, the crackled lines on the top were right, and the taste wasn’t bad.  However, once again, the texture was all wrong, and that elusive mystical top glaze was wrong too.  My cookies came out spongy instead of chewy, and my top glaze looked clear and sugary with obvious powdered sugar residue, instead of just a slightly shiny crust.  I’m wondering if I should beat the egg whites less to take away some of the spongy quality?  Maybe I should glaze the top with some of the leftover egg white and sugar mixture halfway through the baking process?  If only I had paid closer attention in home-economics…

Here’s the recipe I tried today:

2/3c flour

1/8 t salt

dash of cinnamon

4 eggs, separated

1/4 c granulated sugar

1/4 c confectioner’s sugar, and some extra to sprinkle on top

1/2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300.  Grease 2  cookie sheets and lightly flour.  Sift together flour and salt and cinnamon.  In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks and granulated sugar.  In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff, then beat in confectioner’s sugar until glossy. Fold all ingredients together.  Spoon into pastry bag (or ziploc bag with corner cut off).  Pipe out 4” long lines.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar, wait 2 minutes, and then sprinkle with powdered sugar again.  Bake about 16 minutes.

The Sicilian Curse

This morning I made my first attempt at doctoring-up a Savoiardi recipe I found on the internet.  The verdict:  I suck.

The general shape was close, the flavor wasn’t awful, but everything else was completely wrong.  First of all, the color wasn’t white enough.  I tried using only egg whites (no yolks) to ensure a white color, but I wanted a hint of cinnamon flavor, and the addition of powdered cinnamon darkened the cookie way too much.  In the future, I think that cinnamon oil may be the way to go.  Is that even a real thing?  I’ll have to search for it.

Second, and most disturbing, was the texture.  It was so wrong that I don’t even know where to begin to correct it.  They came out chewy, doughy, and bread-y.  The real Savoiardi is cookie-like and only slightly chewy.

Third, the top looked all wrong.  My cookies looked like uniform little loaves of bread.  The real Savoiardi has an almost glazed look on top; smooth, slightly shiny, and crackled.  I’m wondering if there is a separate layer of meringue-like glaze that should be added on top of the cookie before baking?

This hunt may be harder than I thought.

Here’s the recipe that I tried today.  Don’t try this one at home!

4 egg whites

2/3 c white sugar

1 c all purpose flour

1/2 t baking powder

1 t vanilla exract

1/2 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400.  Beat egg whites to form soft peaks, then slowly beat in sugar and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.  Add dry ingredients to wet and fold in.  Spoon batter into pastry bag or sandwich bag with corner cut off and pipe onto cookie sheet.  Bake 8 minutes.

Drunken searches for Guinea cookie recipes

The Christmas holiday season is over, and I, like my uncle’s crack whore girlfriend, am frothing at the mouth, plotting how to get my next fix.  ”What,” you may ask, “could she be missing?  The lights?  The gifts?  The endless Bing Crosby hits?”  

Nay, I say to you.  It is the sugar.  Not just sugar in its boring, lifeless original form, but sugar that has been processed and turned into an elusive substance; an ambrosia for the ages.  I am speaking, of course, of the Savoiardi cookie.

If you aren’t from the greater New York area, and don’t possess a naturally hairy upper lip (the kind that can only be passed down genetically from mother to daughter), and if your last name doesn’t begin with a D’, have 2 z’s in it, or end in a vowel, then you’ve probably never heard of this cookie.  Even if you’ve heard of it, you probably still don’t really know what it is because this cookie has an imposter!

If you search the internet for Savoiardi recipes, you will undoubtedly have a run-in with the True Savoiardi’s bastard cousin.  Sure, they call it a Savoiardi, but it’s just a crappy lady finger in disguise!  It’s only use is in Tiramisu, or as a brick with which to build fireplaces or side your house.  The True Savoiardi is a thing of great beauty.  Unlike it’s yellowish, thick, hard imposter, the True Savoiardi is white, slightly chewy, and has a smooth surface that slightly crackles when bitten into.  The flavor is light.  Is that a touch of vanilla; a subtle seductive hint of cinnamon?  I may never know, because the recipe is apparently guarded by the mafia, or the Knights of Columbus, or someone like that.  I kid you not…the recipe does not exist on the internet.  I know because I just spent 3 hours with a bottle of wine and my laptop searching.  The only thing that I ended up with is double vision, and the knowledge that I’m not the only one coming up empty handed.  Countless others have searched, but none have succeeded.

Any good Italian from the greater New York area can most likely track down this cookie at a quality Italian bakery.  Perhaps it’s the large noses that allow them to hunt them down, but they will inevitably show up at your Christmas part with a white cardboard box tied with string after stopping at 3 or 4 bakeries (and will be sure to tell you about the trouble they went through to find them for you.)  However, ask these same Italians to bake this cookie for you, and you will only get a blank stare.  You see, only these handful of elite Italian bakeries seem to possess this recipe, and they will not share it!

And so begins my quest.  I am determined to figure out how to make this elusive cookie.  I will search the internet, doctor-up recipes on my own, and hopefully get some advice and recipes from strangers along the way.