Bizcocho de cajitas -- Little box biscuits, a Pinedo recipe

After being pleasantly surprised by the recipe "Bizcochos de chocolate" turning out to be brownies (click here to see the post), I wanted to explore Encarnacion Pinedo's section on biscuits more.

On pages 33-34, I found "Bizcocho de cajitas", or "Little box biscuits", which was too cute of a name to pass up.  

Little box biscuits.

         A half-pound of powdered sugar is put in a tub, and twelve egg yolks are thrown in; [separately] the whites are beaten well for half an hour.

         Meanwhile another person will be stirring the yolks and sugar with a wooden spatula. Having raised the egg whites to the consistency of solid snow, the yolks with the sugar will be poured over the top, stirring all gently with the same spatula.

         In this state, six ounces of fine flour will be added, two more ounces of powdered sugar, and enough extract of lemon. The flour and sugar powder should have been previously passed through a very fine sieve; finally let everything be mixed well but gently;

precaution must be taken so that the beaten egg whites do not settle or reduce.

         With this dough, little boxes will be half-filled, because while being in the oven the dough becomes very inflated. The boxes can be made of tin or paper.

         The tin-foil boxes are rubbed inside with butter, and when you take them out of the oven, shake them while still hot. Those that are made in white paper boxes can be served in them and are not buttered.

         Before putting them in the oven, be careful to sprinkle them with sifted sugar.

         They should be cooked over high heat until they are deep or fiery yellow.

         Anise can be added instead of lemon.

 

My Redaction

I chose to scale down the quantities by one-half.  This yielded 24 little box biscuits.

4 ounces powdered sugar

6 eggs, separated

3 ounces flour

1 more ounce powdered sugar

3/4 - 1 teaspoon lemon extract

granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  

Put paper muffin cups into a muffin tin, or butter the tin's cups if not using paper.

Mix egg yolks and powdered sugar well.  Set aside.

Beat egg whites until stiff.  

Gently pour the yolk mixture over the whites.  Carefully fold the yolks into the white, making sure to mix all the way down to the bottom of the container.

Mix the flour and extra powdered sugar in a container.  Sift or fluff with a whisk.  Sprinkle gently over the egg white mixture.  

Add lemon extract.  Fold gently until everything is well mixed.  

Spoon the batter into the muffin papers, filling them about one-half full.  Sift some granulated sugar over each cup.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until a pick inserted in the middle comes out clean, and the tops are golden brown.

Immediately remove the biscuits from the tin and cool on a rack.

My Notes

Mixing the yolks and sugar first, then letting them sit while the whites are beaten gives the sugar time to dissolve.  

Before

After

I used 3/4 teaspoons lemon extract.  I learned that the book out of which Ms. Pinedo got this recipe specified using the zest of one lemon (in modern terms, about 1 tablespoon) for the whole recipe.  For a half recipe, that comes out to be 1 1/2 teaspoons zest.  3/4 to 1 teaspoons extract seemed the right conversion.

We all have to be grateful for modern mixers that can raise egg whites to "solid snow" in a matter of minutes.  I would not enjoy beating them for 30 minutes by hand.

It's always fun to take pictures of beaten egg whites.

The egg whites will lose some of their puff with all the mixing, but being gentle about it means they won't lose too much.  The heavier yolk mixture tends to sink to the bottom of the mixing bowl, so use a rubber scraper if possible and work to mix it throughout the whites.

Yolks over whites.

Folding.

Sprinkle the flour around, do not dump it on.

And fold again.

I used two spoons to get the batter into the cups:  one to scoop and the other to help push the batter off the first spoon.

The Verdict

These are cupcakes!  More specifically, very much like lemon chiffon cupcakes.  They are soft, light, and fluffy.  The flavor is lightly sweet and barely lemon.  

Beautiful!

Too bad the sparkles don't show up in the photograph

My guest taster and I found them to be more "eggy" than the traditional chiffon cakes; they were more chewy than I had expected.  It makes me wonder if a little more flour would settle that down and give it more of a tender crumb.

Almost a chiffon cake.

Not that we were complaining.  We both enjoyed their flavor and the lightness that accompanied the eggy background.  I think these would make a good base to hold a fruit compote and a little whipped cream, similar to a strawberry shortcake.

After having tried several (don't judge!), I found the lemon flavoring was not consistent.  Some were barely lemon and others had a stronger scent and taste.  To fix this, I would mix the extract into the yolk mixture with the powdered sugar.  This should distribute the extract throughout the batter.  I also think that using zest instead of extract -- still mixing in with the yolks -- would be excellent, if zest was available.

Using 1 teaspoon extract would not be bad, I think.  It would depend on how much you wanted the lemon flavor to come through.

Also, I sprinkled sugar over the top of one batch but not the other.  I noticed that the sugar added a delightful sparkle once the biscuits were baked.

Little box biscuits!  A success!