Ladyfinger Cakes, History of Ladyfingers, Boudoir biscuits, sponge biscuits, sponge fingers, Naples biscuits, Savoy biscuits (Savoiardi), Biscuits a la cuiller

Ladyfinger Cakes - History of Ladyfingers
Boudoir biscuits, sponge biscuits, sponge fingers, Naples biscuits, Savoy biscuits (Savoiardi) & Biscuits a la cuiller

© copyright 2004 by Linda Stradley - United States Copyright TX 5-900-517- All rights reserved. This web site may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission and appropriate credit given. If you use any of the history information contained below for research in writing a magazine or newspaper article, school work or college research, and/or television show production, you must give a reference to the author, Linda Stradley, and to the web site What's Cooking America.

Ladyfingers are oval-shaped cookies or cakes that are also known around the world as Boudoir biscuits, sponge biscuits, sponge fingers, Naples biscuits, Savoy biscuits (Savoiardi) and biscuits a la cuiller.

Ladyfingers 11th Century - The recipe, which has changed little in nine hundred years, dates from the House of Savoy in the eleventh century France. Historians seem to think that the recipe was carried throughout Europe by the marriages of the descendents of Bertha of Savoy (1051-1081) to the royalty of Europe.

18th Century - Folklore has it that Czar Peter the Great of Russia (1689-1725) and his wife, the peasant empress Catherine, so enjoyed Ladyfingers when visiting Louis XV of France, that they purchased the Baker and sent him immediately to Saint Petersburg.

1901 - Specialty Bakers Inc., a small bakery company on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Marysville, Pennsylvania, is known as "The Ladyfinger Specialist." Virtually all the commercially available Ladyfingers in America have been baked by Specialty Bakers since 1901.