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Message: [QUOTE="Cahoot, post: 44767, member: 3784"] Funnily enough I was actually wondering about the same thing a few days ago, specifically the European biscuits like genoise, biscuit de Savoie, biscuit joconde, biscuit viennois, biscuit cuillère (i.e. ladyfingers). I'm familiar with how their ingredients and mixing methods differ, but without actually having made them myself I was more wondering what their differences are texturally and hence when you'd use one over the other. I know some have classic uses, e.g. joconde is used for Opera cake, cuillère is used for tiramisu, but was also wondering in general when to pick which biscuit to use. From what I understand, they mostly taste very similar, it's their texture and structure where they differ, right? Just a note on the ones I've listed, gateau de Savoie refers to a thick cake, but as for the biscuit I've seen recipes that are basically like genoise but made with a separate egg method (egg whites whipped separately then folded into the egg yolk foam), so I think it's basically just what we'd refer to as a sponge cake. Larousse Gastronomique describes it as similar to biscuit à cuillère but not as light. I also haven't been able to find what the actual difference between biscuit joconde and viennois is. Recipes that I've seen for them are basically the same, and in fact in [I]Advanced Bread and Pastry[/I] in the text before the formulas section, they refer to the mixing method as the "biscuit jaconde method", but in the formulas section they only have a formula for "biscuit viennois" which uses that mixing method, which leads me to believe they're just different names for the same thing. [/QUOTE]

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