Vegan lady fingers (gluten free option)

Vegan lady fingers (gluten free option)

vegan lady fingers top down

Ho ho ho, where did all the time go? (stunned face emoticon here). Once again, the proximity of the festive period has taken me completely by surprise this year. Well, not quite as I did mark it in my calendar so that I can focus my mind on festive recipe creation ahead of the time, but it still feels a touch too early to be baking all these cookies, coming up with impressive dinner centrepieces and flamboyant sides.

Today’s recipe is a bit of a tease. I’ve been working on vegan lady fingers also known as savoiardi biscuits on and off for two years or so and have plenty of failed biscuits, which turned into sad flat puddles, under my belt. This year I’ve decided that I really want to make a proper vegan tiramisu for the blog (recipe now live, here), so before I do I’ve got to put this recipe to bed. And I am pleased to report that after countless sinks of washing up (that’s the least fun part of recipe creation), I have come up with a vegan lady fingers recipe I am happy with.

They are not hard to make – the key skill here is being able to fold ingredients into each other super gently – and the best thing about them is that they keep for ages provided you lock them away from any source of humidity. This means that if you plan to make tiramisu for your Thanksgiving or Xmas meal, you can make the lady fingers two or even three weeks in advance and lock them away safely until the time to get on with the cream comes. Just make sure that no one is sneaking up to your hiding place at around afternoon coffee time on a daily basis 😉 .

vegan lady fingers aquafaba whipping

vegan lady fingers aquafaba sugar whipped

vegan lady fingers batter

vegan lady fingers piping

vegan lady fingers

vegan lady fingers gluten free version

vegan lady fingers tray

vegan lady fingers side

vegan lady fingers stack

makes
20
PREP
20 min
COOKING
12 min
makes
20
PREPARATION
20 min
COOKING
12 min
INGREDIENTS

GLUTEN-FREE VERSION

METHOD
  1. Preheat the oven to 200° C / 390° F and line two baking trays with baking paper. Prepare a piping bag with a plain 1.25 cm / ½” nozzle – if you only have a smaller one, like I do, pipe double lines instead. Place the piping bag in a very tall glass for easy filling.
  2. Melt vegan butter and allow it to cool down. I tend to put it in a metal bowl, which I place in the oven while it is heating up for about 4 minutes to melt.
  3. Combine flour, cornflour / cornstarch, both baking agents and salt in a separate bowl and get a fine sieve ready. If making the gluten-free version, include almond meal and xanthan gum.
  4. Put aquafaba and lemon juice in a large, spotlessly clean (grease residue inhibits aquafaba from reaching stiff peaks) bowl. Using an electric mixer, whip aquafaba until it reaches stiff peaks.
  5. Once you reach stiff peaks (turn the bowl upside down to check) start adding sugar (tablespoon after tablespoon), whipping the whole time until you’ve used up all of the sugar and your meringue mixture is glossy and thick (see the photo of the spoon).
  6. Place a sieve over the bowl with the meringue and sift approximately a quarter of the dry ingredients through. Fold sifted ingredients into the meringue very slowly and gently so that you don’t knock too much air out of the mixture. Proceed with the next two batches of the dry ingredients in the same manner.
  7. Just before you fold in the last batch, fold in vanilla and almond extract and melted (but cooled) vegan butter. Fold these liquids in slowly and gradually so that the mixture stays nicely aerated. Finally fold in the final portion of dry ingredients.
  8. Once everything is just incorporated – the batter should be very thick – transfer the batter to the piping bag.
  9. Pipe 10 cm / 4″ long cookies on the two baking trays leaving some space around each cookie.
  10. Sprinkle each cookie with caster sugar first (use fingers), followed by icing sugar (use a sieve).
  11. Bake for about 10 minutes, then open the oven for a few seconds to let the steam out, close the door and continue baking for another 2-4 minutes – until lightly golden. The longer you bake them the crunchier they’ll become.
  12. Allow the cookies to cool down before transferring them to a drying rack. Once completely cool, store them in an airtight container. They will last 2-3 weeks.

NOTES
*VANILLA EXTRACT: if using vanilla pod seeds or powder instead of extract, make sure to replace lost liquid with plant milk, for example.

My tiramisu recipe is available here.

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NUTRITIONAL INFO
calories
128
6%
sugars
7 g
8%
fats
2 g
3%
saturates
0 g
2%
proteins
2 g
5%
carbs
24 g
9%
*per finger
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5.0
11 reviews, 19 comments
REVIEWS & QUESTIONS
Donna M:
A really good recipe and I have tried many! The trick is to gently fold in the flour so you don't deflate the aquafaba. I'm very pleased with how they turned out!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Aw thank you Donna, I am so happy to hear that these came out well and that you are pleased with the outcome. Thank you for taking the time to let me know - so appreciated. Ania
Anna:
I used this recipe yesterday to make vegan tiramisu and it turned out amazing! I wasn't sure which recipe on the internet to pick, but I'm glad I chose this one. I was afraid they were going to turn out flat (due to my inexperience, not the recipe) but this is pretty foolproof. I substituted some things and it was still delicious. I'd like to thank my kitchen scale for being my best friend last night. It makes following recipes so much easier. I brought my vegan tiramisu to Thanksgiving dinner and everyone LOVED it, including me! I'm usually shy when bringing food but I was really excited to show up with my tiramisu today. Thanks for the great recipe :)
    Ania
    Ania:
    Yay, thanks so much Anna! I am so pleased to hear that they turned out so well. Yes, kitchen scales is your best friend when it comes to baking where precision really matters so good call! I am so pleased that your vegan Tiramisu was such a hit last night, I know all too well that it isn't easy being vegan at a non-vegan celebration but brining good food certainly helps to feel less alone. Thank you so much for taking the time to review, it helps me a lot. x Ania
Rachel:
These turned out amazingly! They made a delicious vegan tiramisu and the few left over went perfectly with my morning cup of coffee. I was a little nervous when folding the dry ingredients with the whipped aquafaba, as it seemed like there was too much dry and all the air was dissappearing but in the end it was fine 🤗
    Ania
    Ania:
    I'm delighted to hear that, Rachel, thank you! And I really appreciate you taking the time to leave this lovely review. x Ania
Helen:
These were fantastic, great recipe - so easy to put together! I made the regular version but I have a Celiac friend coming over for dinner soon and I cannot wait to make your tiramisu for her, I bet she will love it too. Helen
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks Helen, I'm so pleased to hear that. And I hope your friend will enjoy it just as much. x Ania
Elena:
I tried the gluten free version and the result was just perfect! I used in a vegan & gluten free tiramisu.
Thank you for the recipe!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Aw, thanks so much, Elena! I am delighted to hear that you found these to be just what you were looking for. Thank you for taking the time to review this recipe, I really appreciate it. x Ania
Rita:
Hi Ania, thank you very much for this recipe, the ladyfingers turned out really nice :)
I also tried the gluten free version but the dough was way too dry - impossible to push through the piping bag. Probably my gluten free mix works a bit differently than the one you use, how would you solve this problem? Thank you!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Hi Rita,
    Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed the regular version. As for the gluten-free one, yes, it does sound like maybe your mix had a higher percentage of starches so the mixture ended up too thick (I am assuming you used scales so there is little chance of any mismeasuring). You can simply add a small amount of plant milk or whip up more aquafaba to bring it to a pipeable consistency. Hope this helps x Ania
Jenny:
Hey Ania,
They came out super nice. Crunchier than expected as the color was still very light, but perfect for tiramisu. I can't wait to eat the tiramisu tomorrow! Definitely a very good recipe, five stars from me!
I have one question though. Regular ladyfingers with eggs would require way more aquafaba (probably almost double) for the amount of flour/cornstarch you use. I assume you tried this and it didn't work out? Because the texture is very different from non-vegan ladyfingers, just was curious.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Great to hear, Jenny! Yes, they are meant to be quite crunchy so that the dessert does not end up soggy. Yes, but the mixture is way too runny and so they come out flat. Aquafaba is great but is no a 1:1 replacement for eggs, unfortunately. x Ania
Cecile:
Who doesn’t love a Tiramisu. The recipe I have used in the past states to bake a cake then cut it and dry it out, like biscotti, so when I saw this recipe I was very excited.
The ingredients are things you would normally have in your cupboard, so I didn’t even have to venture out and pluck the red flower from the highest mountain top in Peru - although that would be an experience in itself!
The recipe is very well written and comes together exactly as indicated. I needed help with the piping as I didn’t have a big enough nozzle and the dough is very thick. My suggestion is to get a large nozzle. My husband ended up adapting a nozzle I never use to be bigger, and those biscuits came out very pretty.
Oven temperature- this depends a bit more on your oven, if you are a baker and you know your oven then adjust to how you normally bake biscuits, my first batch I made exactly as written and they came out a bit overdone, so on the second batch I lowered the temp a bit and they were perfect.
They don’t take long to make either, the longest part is whipping the aquafaba (chickpea water) and the baking…
These biscuits are delicious on their own too with tea, so if you don’t want tiramisu then bake them because you can. I think they will work really well for a trifle too!
What are you waiting for? Go on, you know you want to!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Aw, thanks so much for this lovely write-up, Cecile! I'm so happy that you enjoyed these and found them easy to make too and you are right, no rare or difficult ingredients so low barrier to entry so to speak ;) Good thinking on modding the nozzle you already had (satisfying, isn't it?) and yes, the oven temperature does sometimes differ so needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. They will definitely be used in a triffle recipe in the future. x Ania
Sonia:
Hi Ania,
I made the biscuits a few weeks back and they came out beautifully. Then used them for your tiramisu recipe. Everything got wiped out clean in no time. Thank you so much for all the efforts you put in to make these perfect recipes. Love from India. ❤️
    Ania
    Ania:
    Aw, thank you so much for your kind words, Sonia! I'm delighted to hear that this and my tiramisu recipe were such a success with you and fellow diners. And thank you so much for this lovely review. Good reviews really help my work to be seen by more people so I really appreciate you taking the time. x Ania
Mary:
Enjoy your recipes very much. So, I was surprised that you did not have the PRINT feature for the lady fingers. Was it just overlooked?
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thank you, Mary! I'm pleased to hear that. PRINT button is still there but only on our desktop version of the website - we've got rid of it on mobiles and tablets due to there being no space for it to be added elegantly and reasoning that people don't usually print from their phone. Ania
      Shell:
      If you can it would be lovely to have the ability to print from mobile devices. I personally use my phone and iPad exclusively in the kitchen. I suppose we can take screenshots of the recipes and print those off too.
        Ania
        Ania:
        Hi Shell,
        I'm happy to report that following your feedback we added print function to the mobile version too. Hope you'll enjoy using our new website! x Ania
Vegan Cheese:
This is so exciting! These Vegan Lady Fingers are so perfect! They taste really good , have the ideal texture and can be used to make Tiramisu. We can't wait for your full vegan tiramisu recipe!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thank you, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed them! And yes, tiramisu is coming...pronto! x Ania
Aimee:
Oooo Im so excited about what I think *may* be on the way, after this new recipe addition!!!! Yay!!! You are such a hardworker!!! X
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thank Aimee, I hope not to disappoint ;) ! I try although learning to cut myself a bit of slack sometimes - doesn't come natural to me! x Ania
Candida Schwartz:
Hi, I can't wait for the tiramisu filing recipe! I'm gf also. I would love to buy your book. I'm wondering how much of the book ihas gf options??
Thank you! ❤
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks, I'm glad to hear that! I hope you'll give it a go. Unfortunately, I have not published a book just yet, but thank you for your interest. x Ania
Lou:
I’m so so excited to see this recipe! I’ve scoured the Internet to find a recipe for actual vegan ladyfingers for tiramisu and have only seen cake and the like being used. Can’t wait until the full tiramisu recipe comes out!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thank you, Lou! I'm happy to hear that and watch this space - tiramisu cream is under way ;) x Ania
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