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Almond Souffles
Mix gradually half a pint of milk with three table-spoonfuls of flour and one ounce and a half of butter; stir until it comes to a stiff paste, then add two dessert-spoonfuls of sugar, the beaten yolks of four eggs, two ounces of ground almonds, and lastly the well-whisked whites of the eggs. Mix lightly, then turn into a souffle dish, and bake until of a light brown. Probable cost, 1s.
A panade-based soufflé of the classic Victorian type: a thick flour-and-butter paste loosened with yolks and lifted with whipped whites. The original gives neither oven temperature, dish size nor timing, so those are the gaps to fill.
- The hingeLet the cooked paste cool to just warm before beating in the yolks, and fold the whites in three additions, cutting rather than stirring. A hot panade scrambles the yolks, and over-mixing at the fold is the usual reason a soufflé of this kind comes out dense.
- MeasuresCassell's half pint is the imperial 10 fl oz, about 1¼ cups. Three tablespoonfuls of flour is roughly 1 oz, and two dessert-spoonfuls of sugar is about 4 teaspoons — sweet only in the French sense, so add a tablespoon more if you want it closer to a modern dessert.
- Making the pasteCombine the milk gradually with the flour and butter as the recipe directs and cook, stirring, until it thickens and leaves the side of the pan in a mass. With this much milk to so little flour it will be a thick sauce rather than a stiff dough.
- OvenBake at 375-400F. "Until of a light brown" is 20-25 minutes for one large soufflé, 12-15 for individual ramekins; the centre should still wobble slightly when the dish is nudged.
- The dishA souffle dish of about 1½ pints (roughly 3½ cups), buttered and then dusted with caster sugar rather than flour, which gives the mixture something to climb and a faint crust. Fill no more than three-quarters full.
- AlmondsGround almonds here means what a supermarket sells as almond flour or almond meal, not marzipan. Almonds pounded fresh at home were probably more aromatic than long-stored pre-ground meal, so a few drops of almond extract may help.
- ServingServes four. Send it to the table straight from the oven — it will begin to sink within a couple of minutes, and no amount of care in the folding prevents that.
- The cost noteOne shilling was the estimated ingredient cost at the time of publication, included so a cook could price a menu. It carries no useful information now beyond telling you this counted as an inexpensive sweet course.
Soufflé is the past participle of the French souffler, to blow or puff, and the dish reached English cookery books through the professional French kitchen of the earlier nineteenth century, where a flour-panade base of the sort used here was one standard method before lighter crème-pâtissière and fruit-purée versions became common. Almonds were a common flavouring for genteel English sweets long before chocolate or vanilla were cheap, arriving ground, blanched, or as ratafia and orange-flower water.