Rachel Roddy’s figs with raspberry cream and cat tongue biscuits. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Rachel Roddy’s figs with raspberry cream and cat tongue biscuits. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The Guardian A kitchen in Rome Food Rachel Roddy’s recipe for figs with raspberry cream and cat tongue biscuits Combine these simple Italian baked treats with chilled fruit and thick cream for a playful summer pudding
Rachel Roddy Thu 13 Aug 2026 07.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google I n his exquisite The French Menu Cookbook , Richard Olney has clear ideas and strong opinions about everything, including dessert. He believed that rich desserts should follow only the simplest of meals, whereas with most menus (meaning all the sophisticated menus in his book), something light, airy and playful is best. His suggestions read like a summer fruit poem: peach melba, apple mousse with peaches, apricot fritters dusted with icing sugar, strawberries in sweetened orange juice, strawberries in beaujolais, strawberry mousse with raspberry puree, iced cherries and fresh almonds. One of his late summer/early autumn menus also suggests fresh figs with raspberry cream ( figues à la crème framboise ), which is both fun to make (the red puree streaking through the cream for a raspberry ripple) and to eat.
An airy and playful pudding calls for an airy and playful biscuit. What better than lingue di gatto, or cat tongues, so called because of their flat, elongated shape. Made from butter, sugar, flour, and egg whites, lingue di gatto are not complicated to make, but do require a piping bag, which can be mimicked by a zip-lock bag – just remember to scrape the mixture into the bag first, and only snip the end off when you are ready to pipe.
This recipe is from Italian pastry chef Iginio Massari’s Non solo zucchero [Not Only Sugar] Volume 1, an invaluable step-by-step guide to short pastry, sponge cakes, butter masses, creams, cream puffs and meringues aimed at professional pastry chefs, but just as suitable (and revelatory) for enthusiastic but chaotic pastry cooks like me.
There are various ways to serve this pudding. Olney suggests a large serving dish, which, considering his warning never to put tomato dishes on a red plate or those including spinach on a green one, should not be pink. Olney arranges the chilled fig slices first, then pours the raspberry cream over the top, which baffles me slightly, because the cream is so thick. An alternative is serving in individual bowls, saucers or glasses: a spoonful of the raspberry cream first, then topping it with a small pile of fruit (figs, the whole raspberries you’ve set aside, plus redcurrants and mint leaves). The cat tongue biscuits can be stuck in the cream like fairy wings, put on the side of the plate, or passed around the table on a separate plate so everyone can help themselves.
4-6 ripe figs (pale green or dark purple) 250g raspberries , washed 250ml whipping cream 1-2 tbsp icing sugar A few redcurrants A few mint leaves
For the biscuits 50g soft butter 60g icing sugar 3 egg whites (50g) 60g plain flour , sifted 30g flaked almonds
Put the softened butter and icing sugar in a bowl, and use a spatula to mix them together. Fold in the egg whites, before adding the sifted flour and mixing again.
Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag with a smooth 10mm nozzle (or a zip-lock bag you can snip the corner from). On a baking tray lined with baking paper, squeeze out lines that…