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Omelet Souffle, Moulded
Take four fresh eggs, and break the yolks and whites into separate basins. Beat the yolks well, and mix with them two table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, a small pinch of salt, three macaroons finely-crumbled, a tea-spoonful of finely-minced candied peel, and a dessert-spoonful of arrowroot. When these ingredients are thoroughly and smoothly mixed, add the whites of the eggs beaten to a firm froth. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered, simply-marked mould, which should be so large that the omelet will no more than half fill it, and bake in a moderate oven. When the souffle is set and lightly browned it is done enough. Turn it out, sift powdered sugar over it, and serve as expeditiously as possible. Time to bake, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A late-Victorian baked soufflé omelet, unusual in being turned out of its mould rather than served in the dish. The whole thing lives or dies on how you fold the whites in and how fast it reaches the table.
- Oven temperature"Moderate oven" is conventionally read today as about 350F/175C, though Cassell's itself gives no temperatures. Bake on a middle shelf; the quarter-hour given is plausible for a mould holding four eggs' worth of mixture, but check at 12 minutes.
- The hinge: folding, not stirringThe yolk base is thickened with arrowroot and macaroon crumbs and will be stiff. Slacken it with a spoonful of the beaten whites first, then fold the rest in with a large metal spoon in as few strokes as possible. Beat the whites to firm peaks that still look glossy, not dry and grainy.
- Spoon measuresVictorian tablespoons and dessertspoons run close to modern ones: read the two tablespoons of sugar as 30 ml, the dessertspoon of arrowroot as roughly 2 teaspoons, and the teaspoon of candied peel as a teaspoon.
- MacaroonsThese are the old English almond macaroon — a crisp, chewy almond biscuit, not a French macaron shell or a coconut macaroon. Amaretti crumbs are the closest easy substitute; three will give a small handful of crumbs, depending on their size.
- ArrowrootStill sold, and worth using rather than cornflour here: it sets clear and light and does not carry the raw-starch taste cornflour can leave in a short bake.
- "Simply-marked mould"A plain mould with shallow fluting or ribbing, not an elaborate figured one — deep detail traps a risen egg mixture and tears it on turning out. Butter it thoroughly and dust with caster sugar so it releases. Size it generously, as the original directs, so the mixture no more than half fills it.
- Turning outLoosen the edge, invert onto a warm dish immediately; a soufflé mixture left to stand will sink and stick. If the idea of unmoulding worries you, bake it in a buttered dish and serve from it — the eating is the same.
- Serving"As expeditiously as possible" is not a flourish. It will begin to collapse within two or three minutes of leaving the oven. Two to three portions, as the original states.
Cassell's placed this among its soufflé and omelet lessons at a time when the two words overlapped freely: an "omelet soufflé" meant any dish of separated eggs, sweetened, lightened with whipped whites and set by heat, whether in a pan or in the oven. The macaroon crumbs and candied peel are characteristic of English sweet cookery of the period, which — to generalise — leaned on bought biscuits and preserved citrus for flavour where a French kitchen might have used a flavoured pastry cream; arrowroot, then imported in quantity from the West Indies, was the fashionable delicate starch and was thought lighter and more digestible than flour, which is why it turns up so often in invalid and dessert cookery. The stated cost of 8d might be read as placing it as a middle-class dinner sweet — cheap enough for a family table, but assuming four fresh eggs and a cupboard with candied peel in it.