Welcome to the Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museum at the Culinary Institute of America at Copia in downtown Napa.
This collection of more than 4,000 culinary artifacts celebrates the craftsmanship, beauty, and diversity of cookware and kitchen tools.Today, we'll be taking a look at this Savoy cake pan tier set.
This Savoy tiered cake pan set is named after the type of cake baked in it, the biscuit de Savoy, and it was made in France between the years 1950 and 1970.
Biscuit de Savoie, also known as Savoy cake, is a traditional French sponge cake that originated in the Savoy region of France.
Comprising six tinned steel fluted cake pans, the cakes would have been served stacked on top of one another as a statement dessert to impress guests and celebrate holidays and birthdays.
A Biscuit de Savoie is a light sponge cake with whipped egg whites, granulated sugar, flour, and lemon, with some variations also using potato flour or cornstarch to make it extra light and fluffy.
The cake may be fluffy, but it has a long and illustrious history going back to the 14th century.
In 1358, in Chambray, France, the Count Amadeus VI of Savoy asked his court pastry chef to make a cake as light as a feather for a special dinner with Charles IV of Luxembourg.
The pastry chef who created the cake, Pierre de Yenne, was from a small town of Yenne, where to this day proudly claims to be the birthplace of Biscuit de Savoie.
The first published recipe for Biscuit de Savoie cake appeared in 1691 in the cookbook, Nouveau Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, by François Martialotte.
President Thomas Jefferson also wrote a version of the recipe, likely in the 1780s when he was living in Paris.In the president's version, he uses orange zest in place of lemon.
In the cookbook Complete System of Cookery by John Simpson, published in London in 1806, he suggests decorating the Biscuit de Savoie cake with gum paste.
However, it was traditionally served without decoration, allowing the beautiful fluted shape to shine.This Savoy tiered cake pan set was manufactured by Matfer Bourgeois.
In 1814, the Mat for Bourgeois company was created when Charles Trottier, a metalworker, began to make tin and copper molds for pastries.
These tiered cake pans were likely made in Les Lilas factory in Seine, where Mat for Bourgeois still makes its products today.
While Biscuit de Savoie cake is not as well known in the United States, there are many similar light fluted cakes, such as Angel Food Cake, that carry on the tradition.
Sign in
