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SOUFFLE (au Riz)
Boil two ounces of rice flour in a pint of milk until quite thick, stirring it all the time till cold. Mix with it four yolks of eggs, beaten, the grated peel of a lemon, and half a pound of castor sugar. Whisk twelve whites of eggs to a very stiff froth, and stir them quickly and lightly in. Bake in a case or mould, and sift powdered sugar over the top before serving. Flavour with vanilla, or any other flavouring that may be desired.
A rice-flour soufflé of the classic French pattern: a thick milk panada enriched with yolks and lifted by a great many whites. The instructions are complete except for oven heat and time, which the book assumes you know.
- The egg ratio is deliberateFour yolks to twelve whites is not a misprint — the surplus whites are what make this style of soufflé rise so dramatically. Reserve the eight spare yolks for custard or mayonnaise the same day.
- Fold, do not stir"Stir them quickly and lightly in" means fold. Loosen the cold rice base with a spoonful of the whites first, then cut the rest through in two or three additions; the base is stiff enough to knock the air straight out if you work it hard.
- Oven and timeBake at 375–400F for a large mould, 25–35 minutes, until well risen and set with a faint wobble at the centre. Do not open the door for the first 20 minutes, and serve it the moment it leaves the oven.
- A pintThe original is an imperial pint, 20 fl oz, so use 2 1/2 cups of milk to 2 oz rice flour (roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup, depending how it packs). With a US 16 oz pint the mixture will be noticeably stiffer.
- Stirring till coldThis is the hinge. A rice-flour panada sets like paste and forms a skin the instant it stops moving; stir it as it cools, or press cling film onto the surface, or you will fold lumps and skin into the whites.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar; granulated will do in the base but dissolves less readily. Half a pound (225g) is very sweet by present taste — you may prefer to cut it to 4–5 oz.
- "A case or mould"Either a buttered and sugared soufflé dish or a stiff paper case of the kind Victorian pastry cooks baked in. Butter and sugar the sides in upward strokes so the mixture can climb.
- YieldA quantity this size fills a 2-quart dish and serves six to eight. It will not wait, so have the table ready.
Rice flour was a staple of nineteenth-century English confectionery, prized because it thickens without the raw, pasty taste of wheat flour and gives puddings and soufflés a smooth, slightly short texture; it was sold alongside ground rice, arrowroot and sago as one of the standard "farinaceous" powders. The soufflé method — a thick base bound with yolks and raised by whipped whites alone, without any chemical leavening — is the one the French kitchen codified, and a rice version belongs to a family of such variations. The instruction to bake "in a case" points to the paper cases of the professional kitchen, where a soufflé might be sent to table in the same collar it rose in. The heavy hand with sugar and the grated lemon peel are both period markers, though the recipe itself leaves the flavouring open.