Talk:Ladyfinger (biscuit)

What's the difference between Lady Finger biscuits and Langues de Chat? Or are they essentially the same thing? If so, the article needs to reflect the alternate name. (Langue de Chat is in fairly common use in English, despite obviously being French for "Cat's Tongue".) DWaterson 21:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if Langues de Chat (which I've never heard of) are the same thing as Katzenzungen in Germany, then they're made of chocolate, while ladyfingers are made of a flour-based cookie dough. —Angr 13:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I saw some Langues de Chat in a delicatessen yesterday and had a look at the recipe. These were made by the French biscuit maker LU (, although they aren't on that website). Essentially, Langues de Chat appear to be quite a light and crispy cake, like a small, thin, plain, oblong-shaped Madeira cake but with a crispier outside, where as Lady Fingers seem to be dryer, harder, sweeter and sugarier. Fairly similar though. They don't appear to be anything like Katzenzungen, however. DWaterson 20:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Where did the name "Lady Finger" come from? 68.5.100.14 (talk) 05:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

For that matter, it's not clear from the article if "ladyfinger" is a regional North American term for a certain foodstuff that has other names in the rest of the world, or a global standard name that has regional derivations in lesser countries. Which is it? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 18:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm South African and I've never heard these things called anything other than finger biscuits, and I've certainly never heard them called boudoir biscuits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.237.8.111 (talk) 13:30, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * (Moved comment above - please leave new comments at the bottom of a talk page section, not the top.)  Timothy Titus Talk To TT 10:53, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

genoise?
I changed the description in the intro to the article from "génoise cakes" to "sponge cakes." Most ladyfinger recipes use a biscuit-type batter (where the egg yolks and whites are beaten separately, then folded together) rather than a genoise-type batter (where the yolks and whites are beaten together, with butter usually added). Flo Braker is the only cookbook author I know of who uses genoise batter. Since there was no source named, I thought the more generic "sponge cake" would be more appropriate. Patrick Colvin (talk) 03:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

History
The text claims that the first written recipe was by Carême (1783-1833), but does not cite either time or source of publication.

Alan Davidson in Oxford Companion to Food (2014, 3rd ed.), headword "sponge cake", refers to a recipe for "spunge biscuit" probably meant for Savoy/boudoir biscuits (as it says "bake in little long Pans", and the recipe itself obviously is for sponge cake/biscuits) in Mrs Mary Eales's Recipts (second corrected ed. 1718, repr. ed. 1985). (See https://books.google.se/books?id=PTVdAAAAcAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=Mrs%20Eales%20spunge%20biscuit&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q=Mrs%20Eales%20spunge%20biscuit&f=false for original text.)

Larousse Gastronomique (2009, 1st American edition), in article "Savoy sponge cake" says "It was probably made for the first time for Amadeus VI of Savoy in about 1348", but without providing any source. (It has no entries for Boudoir bisquits/cakes or Ladyfingers.)Athulin (talk) 14:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Name
I have added "glacebröd" on the authority of C. E. Hagdahl: Kok-konsten (2nd. ed., repr. 2015), and several later Swedish cook books. The term "savoiardikex" remains, but it sounds rather foreign in this context; it does appear in modern product names, but I suspect it may be a translation from some other language.