Introduction

How can one word have come to mean so many different things? In America, biscuits were originally unleavened, dry, flat cakes. Nowadays, of course, they are raised with baking powder or soda, and almost always served hot. For the English, biscuit (or the earlier form “bisket” which is still pronounced as such) is what Americans call a cookie or cracker. For the Germans, it has a different meaning altogether. The modern German Biskuit is a cake whose batter is made without the addition of butter, in America called a spongecake. Finally, just to make things a bit more complicated, there exists a buttered cousin of this spongecake, known as Butterbiskuit or Genueser Biskuit, which is described in the second part of this section.

Biskuit is the classical batter for Torten (layer cakes), “tortelettes,” jelly and cream rolls, ladyfingers and various cookies. Since this cake is itself so very light, one can splurge with rich fillings of buttercream or whipped cream, with frostings and glazes. With spongecake as the base, your imagination is the only limit in creating variations for your own house specialty torte. But who could resist a perfectly baked spongecake with just a light dusting of powdered sugar?

Well wrapped, Biskuit can be depended upon to keep in the freezer for several months. It is often nice to have such a basic cake in storage and on hand for further improvisation.