Best Eggless Lady Fingers or Eggfree Savioardi I’ve ever made, and believe you me, I’ve made several batches. These have turned out consistently good, are addictive to the bite, and are egg free!
Ladyfingers, or in British English sponge fingers also known in the Haredi Jewish community as baby fingers, are low density, dry, egg-based, sweet sponge cake biscuits roughly shaped like a large finger.
Wikipedia
I’ve been piping out batches of lady fingers for a long time, something I do on days when I have some spare time to experiment. It’s certainly not easy to get these fiddly little fingers looking nice and holding shape if you go egg free. They always taste good though, so there’s never been question of wastage!
They end up being dipped into my eggless lime curd, into melted Biscoff spread or then upcycled into trifles or a quick tiramisu.
I first made saviordi or lady finger biscuits way back in 2010 for a Daring Bakers challenge I co-hosted. If you’d like a recipe that uses eggs, this one was very good, a recipe from Cordon Bleu at Home. A few days ago something seemed to work with my eggless batch and I got the best lot I’ve ever made. I made a couple more batches and each has worked well, so here you go!
Most of my lady fingers do the disappearing act pretty soon after I bake them. A bite here, a nibble there, a dip perhaps and these light, airy sponge fingers are gone. I managed to sneak some into this eggless lime curd tiramisu though, a recipe I should share soon. It was divine!
Talking about eggless lime curd, it pairs just beautifully with the lady fingers. The recipe is simple and straightforward. I never did like the normal lime curd; it was always much too eggy for me. This eggless version is sunshine and I love everything about it. Of course I make it often, and the eggless lime curd makes for really delicious desserts!
You can find more EGGLESS recipes here!
Do tag me on Instagram at Passionate About Baking if you make this, or any other recipe from the blog. I’d love to see it!
Best Eggless lady Fingers {Savioardi}
Ingredients
- 85 g unsalted butter softened
- 50 g castor sugar
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- Pinch salt
- 60 g cultured buttermilk
- 130 g all purpose flour {plain flour}
- Castor sugar for sifting over
Instructions
- Draw margins on a sheet of parchment to get even size lady fingers. Turn it over so the lead pencil marking is not in contact with the batter. Place it on a baking sheet.
- Fit a piping bag with large 1A round piping nozzle. You could just snip off an end to the desired cut if you don’t have a round nozzle.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt until smooth.
- Whisk in the buttermilk a tablespoon at a time. The mixture might look slightly curdled and that’s ok.
- Add all the flour together and stir with a spatula to get a smooth pasty dough. We're looking for a firm churro like dough that holds shape when piped out. If the dough is too runny and pipes out of the bag with no pressure required, you might need to add another tbsp of flour. On the other hand if it is too firm and tough to pipe out, please add a tsp of buttermilk at a time to loosen the dough.
- Transfer the dough to the piping bag and gently pipe out 3″ fingers.
- Dip your fingertip into water and shape the piped out fingers around the tops and bottoms to get even shapes.
- Sift over castor sugar and place the baking sheet in the freezer while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 170C for 20 minutes.
- Bake the fingers for 18-20 minutes until light golden brown and firm to touch.
- Once done, place the baking sheet on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.
- Store the fingers in an airtight container.
