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Raspberry Souffles
Cut six spongecakes in halves, spread a little raspberry jam on each, then arrange on a dish, sift a little sugar over, and pour a glassful of brandy and one of sherry on top. Whisk the whites of six eggs with two ounces of castor sugar until perfectly stiff, spread this on the cakes, and place in the oven to set. Let them cool, then put little heaps of raspberry jam on top, and decorate round with whipped cream. Probable cost, 1s. 6d., without the wine.
This is a meringue-topped trifle rather than a soufflé in the modern sense, and it needs almost no adaptation beyond pinning down the vague Victorian measures.
- The hinge: dry out the meringue, don't brown itThe dish stands or falls on the whites being whisked genuinely stiff and then set gently. The recipe says only "place in the oven to set" and gives no temperature; a moderate oven, somewhere around 325-350F for perhaps 12-15 minutes, is a reasonable modern reading. Too fierce a heat colours the surface before the inside firms, and an underset meringue can weep as it cools.
- SpongecakesMost likely the small, dry individual sponge cakes of the trifle-sponge or Savoy type, light enough to drink up liquid, rather than slices of a large sandwich cake — though the recipe does not specify. Six cut in halves gives twelve pieces.
- "A glassful"Genuinely imprecise in this period. A wine glass was commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so read it as roughly 2 fl oz brandy and 2 fl oz sherry — but taste as you go, since a total of 4 fl oz on twelve small sponges is assertive.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar; granulated will not dissolve fully in the whites and leaves a gritty meringue. Two ounces is about 1/4 cup, which is a lean French-style ratio — expect a soft, tender meringue rather than a stiff pavlova.
- Sifting sugar over the cakesThe recipe says only "a little sugar"; the word "sift" implies a fine sugar, caster or icing. It goes on before the spirits, so it has liquid to dissolve into. Skip it if your jam is already sweet.
- Assembly orderThe jam heaps and whipped cream go on after the dish has cooled completely. Piped onto a warm meringue the cream slumps within minutes.
- Yield and servingNo yield is given; twelve sponge halves suggest about six servings. Best eaten the day it is made; overnight the sponge softens and so does the meringue.
- "Probable cost, 1s. 6d."Cassell's attaches a probable cost to most of its recipes. The qualifier "without the wine" means the figure excludes the brandy and sherry.
In late Victorian kitchens "soufflé" was used loosely for anything raised and airy, including meringue-covered puddings that contain no batter and never rise in the oven — the word means simply "puffed". This one sits squarely between two English standbys: the trifle, with its sponge soaked in sherry and brandy, and the queen of puddings, where jam is capped with sweetened whisked whites and set in the oven. Its appearance in Cassell's reflects the enormous late-nineteenth-century appetite for made-up sweet dishes that used bought sponge cakes and a jar of jam, both of which a middle-class household could rely on having. The whipped cream and piped jam finish belongs to the same era's taste for a dish presented cold and decorated at table.