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Orange Souffle
Peel and sliee six oranges, put in a glass dish a layer of oranges, then one of sugar, and so on until all the orange is used, and let stand two hours; make a soft boiled custard of yolks of three eggs, pint of milk, sugar to taste, with grating of orange peel for flavor, and pour over the oranges when cool enough not to break dish; beat whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, stir in sugar, and put over the pudding. Praised by all. -Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, Melrose, Mass.
This is a cold layered dessert, not a baked soufflé — the name refers only to the froth of whipped whites piled on top. The whole thing is assembled in a glass dish and served chilled.
- The custard is the hingeThree yolks to a pint of milk gives a thin stirred custard that sets only by thickening, never by baking. Cook it over low heat or a water bath, stirring constantly, until it coats a spoon at about 170–175F; a boil will scramble the yolks and no amount of beating will bring them back.
- Zest first, peel secondThe "grating of orange peel" is easiest taken off the fruit before you peel and slice it, though you can also grate the peel once it is off. Take the zest from one or two of the six oranges; adding it to the milk as it heats rather than to the finished custard gives the oil time to infuse.
- Sugar quantitiesNone are given. Roughly 2 tablespoons of sugar per layer of orange (about 1/2 cup total), 1/3 cup in the custard, and 2 tablespoons beaten into the whites suits modern palates. The two-hour standing time is a maceration — the sugar draws out juice, which pools at the bottom.
- Drain before you pourSliced oranges throw a surprising amount of liquid in two hours. Tip most of it off before adding the custard, or the layers will slide into a soup.
- "Cool enough not to break dish"Sound advice for period glassware and still worth heeding with a chilled dish. Let the custard drop to lukewarm and warm the glass under the tap first.
- The meringue is never cookedThe whites go on raw and stay raw. If that concerns you, use pasteurized whites, which whip perfectly well, or brown the top briefly under a broiler and serve at once.
- Yield and servingSix oranges makes six to eight servings. It is best served cold, and it does not keep past the first day -- the whites weep and the juice thins the custard.
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore of Melrose, Massachusetts, was a genuine celebrity contributor: an organizer for the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, a suffrage campaigner and one of the most in-demand lecturers in the country by the 1870s. Her name on a receipt in Buckeye Cookery (published at Marysville, Ohio, 1877) is part of the book's method amed across the states, and a well-known name lent authority to a dish. The dish itself belongs to the family of English trifles and "floating islands," where a soft boiled custard is poured over fruit or cake and crowned with sweetened froth; American cookbooks of the period seem often to have applied the fashionable French word soufflé fairly loosely to anything topped with beaten whites. Oranges in a New England winter were an imported luxury, which is why a recipe calling for six of them at once still reads as slightly extravagant.