Piškoty are iconic Czech biscuits, especially popular among children. Because of this, they’re often associated with nice childhood memories. Homemade piškoty are perfectly crispy and can be eaten as a stand-alone treat or used to prepare delicious sweet desserts.
➜ What Are Piškoty?
Piškoty are small round biscuits about 1.½ inch (3-4 cm) in diameter. They’re light and dry, with a crunchy texture. Czech children love piškoty and eat them in cornstarch pudding, yogurt, or alone.
Even though these little crispy biscuits are readily available in Czech grocery stores, homemade piškoty taste a lot better.
➜ Czech Piškoty vs. Nilla Vanilla Wafers
In the USA you can find similar biscuits called Nilla Vanilla Wafers.
There are few recipes for homemade Nilla Vanilla Wafers on the internet. However, they usually include butter in the batter. On the contrary, Czech piškoty are made without butter and contain less sugar.
You could also say that piškoty resemble Ladyfingers from the US or Sponge Fingers (one of the traditional British food) in Great Britain.
➜ Ingredients
Piškoty made from scratch need only a few basic ingredients, which you probably already have at home in your cupboards.
You´ll need:
- Eggs; at room temperature, taken out of the fridge at least 1 hour before
- All-purpose flour
- Granulated sugar; for Piškoty batter
- Corn starch; to make piškoty even crispier
- Confectioners’ sugar; to sprinkle piškoty before putting them into the oven
- Pinch of salt
Don’t mistake granulated sugar for confectioners’ (icing) sugar.
Granulated sugar belongs to the piškoty batter, while confectioners’ sugar is used for dusting them before you put biscuits in the oven.
➜ Making Piškoty
Aside from the ingredients, you’ll need mixing bowls, a tray lined with baking paper, a sifter, piping bag with a round tip.
An ideal state for the biscuits to melt on your tongue if eaten alone or serve as an excellent base for various desserts.
- Crack the eggs carefully and separate yolks and egg whites, each to its own bowl.
- Whip the egg whites with a mixer. Start on low speed, and increase it gradually while adding the granulated sugar until you use all of it. Whip the egg whites further 5 minutes into stiff peaks. Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites while mixing.
- Lower the mixer speed and start adding egg yolks slowly.
- Fold in flour and corn starch with a kitchen silicon spatula.
- Put the batter into a piping bag and pipe it in even mounds onto a cooking tray.
- Before baking, dust the piškoty with powdered sugar.
- Bake piškoty in a preheated oven on 380 °F (190 °C) until they turn golden brown.
TIP: Egg whites at room temperature are easier to whip than if you took them out of the fridge right before. If you forget to take the eggs out in advance, set them in a cup of warm water for 10 minutes to warm them up.
➜ Icing the Piškoty before Baking
Yes, you read that right: piškoty are dusted with powdered (confectioners’) sugar before you put the tray into the oven.
Because of this, the finished piškoty have a crust, get a bit harder, and don’t raise so much. The surface of the finished piškoty isn’t completely smooth but a bit crinkled.
➜ Recipes with Piškoty
Do you want to know, where to use these little crispy biscuits?
Piškoty are the basic ingredient when preparing Czech no bake desserts, as a component in pie crusts and other sweets.
Try Piškoty out in this recipe:
- Beehive Christmas Cookies – Czech Vosí hnízda
As an example of a popular Czech recipe featuring piškoty, we can take a non-bake apple cake, with alternating layers of piškoty and apple jelly.
Piškoty biscuits can also be used to prepare Italian tiramisu.
Piškoty are also added to yogurt, cornstarch pudding, or eaten as a quick snack for children.
➜ My Favorite Piškoty Childhood Memory
When I was young, I spent a part of my summer holidays at my grandma and grandpa’s farm in Jizera Mountains together with my cousins (there were 11 of us!).
Grandma often made corn starch pudding, which she served in bowls. She garnished the surface of the pudding with piškoty and sweet fruit syrup.
The entire surface was cracked due to the syrup, which was absorbed into the biscuits. They softened perfectly, and the entire dessert tasted absolutely fantastic!
Tried this recipe?
Leave a review down in the comments! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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Crispy Homemade Biscuits – Czech Piškoty
Tap or hover to scale
Ingredients
- 3 medium eggs at room temperature
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon corn starch
- ⅓ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Lightly grease a baking tray with solid fat and place parchment paper on it.
- Get 3 medium eggs and separate the yolks and egg whites. Put the egg whites into a clean bowl. Add a pinch of salt and a bit of granulated sugar. Start beating the egg whites with a mixer on low speed. Gradually increase speed and add all the ½ cup granulated sugar until you use all of it.
- Reduce the speed to minimum and gradually add the egg yolks to the whipped whites, one at a time.
- Fold in ¾ cup all-purpose flour mixed with 1 Tablespoon corn starch. Use your hands and a kitchen silicone spatula. Mix thoroughly; there shouldn’t be any lumps in the batter. The finished mixture is light and airy.
- Preheat the oven to
380 °F – Piškoty need a higher temperature to be crispy enough. - Put the foamy batter into a piping bag with a round tip and pipe small mounds about 1.⅕ inches (3-4 cm) in diameter.
- Dust the mounds with ⅓ cup powdered sugar using a sifter.
- Insert the tray into the oven and bake the Piškoty for 10-15 minutes until they turn light golden.
Notes
- Store finished piškoty in a box covered with a table napkin. The box doesn’t need to be sealed with a lid. Piškoty could moisten and lose their crispiness.
- The basic recipe makes about 60 small Piškoty biscuits.
Nutritional estimate pro serving
More Czech desserts:
- Lívance – sweet yeasted pancakes with cinnamon
- Koláče – Czech authentic kolache recipe
- Rýžový nákyp – rice pudding with canned fruit
- Coconut biscuits – Czech koka sušenky
Montse says
Hello! I just wanted to know how they would turn out if i didn’t sprinkle them with sugar at the end. Thank you!!
Petra Kupská says
Ahoj, dusting with sugar and baking the piškoty biscuit cookies at a higher temperature causes the sugar to caramelize and form a crispy crust on the surface. If you leave out the sugar, the biscuits will be softer. But they will still taste delicious! Hope this helps 🙂
Dennis Williams says
I think a little vanilla or almond flavoring in the batter would be very tasty, or perhaps using vanilla sugar for the frosting. The directions were fool-proof and they turned out well. Dik!
Petra Kupská says
Dik for your comment! 🙂 For the Czech version of piskoty, I would definitely recommend the vanilla aroma!
Sandra says
These were lightly sweet cookies. Refreshing. I made them for my kids church as we were talking about the Czech culture. Thanks for the easy recipe.
Anicka Cooklikeczechs.com says
Hello Sandra, thank you for your feedback. I am happy you liked the recipe and hope your kids enjoyed the piskoty as well! 🙂
Barbora says
Brava ! Your recipe saturated my sudden craving for a particular Czech pudding ( dessert in American English ) - piskoty s varenymi jablky v pudinku - American and British english speakers can take the extra mile and translate the above themselves 🙂
For those, who have not experienced the original taste, texture and smell of this particular biscuit type, I can confirm that this is it - sans the sprinkled sugar on top for me !
Díky Petro
Petra Kupská says
Thank you, Barbora, for your kind comment! I remember the dessert you describe very well; we love it in our family. By the way, I would like to recommend this recipe as well: No bake apple jelly cake made with piškoty and cooked apples thickened with cornstarch pudding. Such goodness!
Sally says
Would you use these for the beehive cookies if you wanted to make it from scratch?