This section is from the book "The Table: How To Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It", by Alessandro Filippini. Also available from Amazon: The Table: How To Buy Food, How To Cook It And How To Serve It.
Put four ounces of powdered sugar and the yolks of five eggs into a small bowl. Beat thoroughly with a spatula for five minutes. Put the whites of the eggs into a copper basin, and with a wire whip beat them to a stiff froth. Add to the sugar and yolks four ounces of flour ; mix together gently for half a minute, and immediately add the whites. Beat gently for one minute more, and the preparation will be ready. Take a well-cleaned pastry-bag (No. 1079), slide into it a No. 2 tube, and with a wooden spoon or small skimmer pour the preparation into the bag. When it is all in, close the upper part of the bag very firmly, and lay it aside for one moment. Take two separate sheets of solid, brown paper, each measuring seventeen inches long by five inches wide ; lay them on the table, one beside the other. Take hold of the lower part of the bag near the tube with the left hand, and the upper part with the right, press with the latter, and drop the batter on the paper in straight strips four inches long by one inch wide. Make ten of equal size on each paper, being careful to leave an empty space of three quarters of an inch between each. Then with a sugar-dredger sprinkle them lightly with powdered sugar three times, at one minute's interval between each sprinkling. When finished, lift up one paper at a time, keeping it perfectly straight, and shake off the loose sugar, being particular that the biscuits do not detach from the paper. Now lay them in a pastry baking-pan, and let rest for two minutes ; put them into a slow oven, and bake for twenty minutes, until of a light golden color. Remove, lift them from the pan, and lay on a table to cool off. Have ready a dessert-dish with a folded napkin, then detaching the biscuits gently from the paper with the hands, dress them neatly or the dish, and send to the table.
 
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