Generality
Cat's tongues are dry pastry preparations. Specifically, these are biscuits known and widespread in many European countries.
The consistency of the ready (cold) biscuit is crunchy and crumbly; the flavor and aroma are of very intense butter and vanilla.
There are various types of cat tongues and can have quite different characteristics.
As far as the nutritional aspect is concerned, cat tongues are to be considered real sweets.
Their gastronomic purpose is above all to accompany other desserts (ice cream, fruit salads, etc.), in which they play a decorative role; for this reason, the average portion is quite small (1-2 pieces each). This does not exclude that they can also be consumed alone or as an accompaniment to morning milk, afternoon tea etc.
Traditional Italian Recipe
The traditional Italian recipe is quite simple:
- Ingredients:
- Room temperature butter 100g.
- Wheat type 00 100g.
- Egg whites about 100g (n ° 3).
- White granular sugar 100g
- Vanillin 1 sachet.
- Procedure (simplified):
- First with a spoon, and then with the automatic mixer, add the softened butter, 1 egg white, sugar and vanillin evenly.
- Add the sifted flour.
- Whisk the remaining 2 egg whites with the automatic mixer (remembering to carefully clean and dry the whips before starting).
- Incorporate the egg whites into the first dough without removing them (turning from bottom to top).
- Cover a baking tray with baking paper; possibly butter it.
- With a spoon, a pastry syringe or a pastry bag (smooth nozzle) pour some strips of dough.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200 ° C in "static" mode.
- Bake and cook until the edges become light brown.
WARNING! The characteristic of cat tongues is the final consistency. Freshly baked they are soft, especially in the center. Left to cool on the plate they tend to dry up becoming crunchy.
Cat's tongues
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It is possible to detach the still soft cat's tongues from the baking paper and place them in different positions (like on a rolling pin) to obtain alternative biscuits (for example U-shaped). In this case it is essential to butter the baking paper, cook the biscuits less and handle them with the help of a long pastry spatula (possibly in steel).
Ingredient variant
As with all other recipes, cat languages can also be customized.
Without losing sight of the objective of a simple and decorative biscuit (it must not detract from the main dessert), we will cite below some very widespread variants:
- Cat tongues covered with dark, milk or white chocolate.
- Cocoa cat tongues (adding cocoa just enough to color the dough).
- Tongue of cat with lemon or orange (grated rind or essential oil).
- Colored cat tongues (blue, red, yellow; with food coloring).
Dietary variant
They can be obtained by respecting various dietary criteria:
- Whole cat tongues: replace the white type 00 flour and beetroot sucrose with a dark flour and wholemeal cane sugar, respectively. It is advisable to set aside a little sugar to sprinkle it over the biscuits about halfway through cooking. This operation must be performed very quickly.
- Cat tongues without sugar: sucrose can be replaced by stevia extract (by adjusting the dose).
- Gluten-free cat tongues: nowadays it is not necessary to experiment recipes with different flours and it is sufficient to replace the wheat powder with the mix for leavened cakes destined for coeliacs.
- Lactose-free cat tongues: various systems can be used to avoid the use of butter. The simplest is to replace it with coconut oil, peanut butter or smoothie avocado. The result is subjectively appreciated. NB . Using vegetable oils it is necessary to work the dough cold.
- Vegan cat tongues: in addition to butter it is also necessary to replace egg whites. The most useful alternative is a mixture of: chickpea cooking water 50% and soy milk 50%, soy protein isolated to thicken, and a pinch of lecithin; then adding the vegetable oil, the mixture must be sticky (not liquid).
Other
A very widespread variant consists of rolled (barely baked) cat tongues and, once cold, coated with chocolate or icing, or stuffed with butter cream, plum jam, etc.
Nutritional aspects
 | ||
| Chemical composition | Value for 100g | |
| Edible part | 100% | |
| water | 29, 0g | |
| Protein | 5, 7g | |
| Total lipids | 19, 0g | |
| Saturated fatty acids | 12, 24g | |
| Monounsaturated fatty acids | 5, 95g | |
| Polyunsaturated fatty acids | 0, 80g | |
| Cholesterol | 62, 5mg | |
| Carbohydrates available | 45, 0g | |
| Starch | 19, 1g | |
| Soluble sugars | 25, 9g | |
| Total fiber | 0.6g | |
| Soluble fiber | - g | |
| Insoluble fiber | - g | |
| Phytic acid | 0.0g | |
| Alcohol | 0.0g | |
| Power | 384, 0kcal | |
| Sodium | 44, 0mg | |
| Potassium | 76, 5mg | |
| Iron | 0, 20mg | |
| Football | 0, 53mg | |
| Phosphorus | 26, 75mg | |
| Magnesium | - mg | |
| Zinc | 0, 31mg | |
| Copper | - mg | |
| Selenium | - µg | |
| Thiamine | 0, 53mg | |
| Riboflavin | 0, 62mg | |
| Niacin | 0, 78mg | |
| Vitamin A retinol eq. | 201, 5μg | |
| C vitamin | 0, 0mg | |
| Vitamin E | 0, 54mg | |
For convenience reasons, we will describe the nutritional characteristics of normal Italian cat languages.
The caloric intake of cat's tongues is remarkable, and comes mainly from carbohydrates; lipids and proteins follow.
Carbohydrates are mainly simple, saturated fatty acids and high biological value peptides.
The fibers are present in modest quantities and cholesterol is relevant.
Among the vitamins, the most important are thiamine (vitamin B1) and retinol (vitamin A). Regarding minerals, no noteworthy levels are not observed.
Cat's tongues are not suitable food for the overweight person, the diabetic, the one suffering from hypertriglyceridemia and hypercholesterolemia.
They do not lend themselves to feeding the lactose intolerant and are not suitable for the celiac diet.
They are accepted by vegetarian philosophy but not by vegan philosophy.
The average portion of cat tongues used as an afternoon snack is about 25g (about 95kcal), for a total of 5 biscuits.
