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Strawberry Souffle
Take half a pint of the pulp of fresh, ripe strawberries; mix with it the yolks of three eggs, half a pound of sugar, and one ounce and a half of butter; also half a gill of cream and three table-spoonfuls of milk mixed with an ounce of flour and half an ounce of arrowroot to the consistency of a custard. Put this in a saucepan, boil up, and let it cool. Then add a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, a table-spoonful of maraschino, the whites of five eggs well beaten to a stiff froth, and six to eight ounces of strawberries cut into slices. Colour with a little carmine, pour into a souffle-dish, then bake for half an hour or so in the oven, and when nearly done dredge with fine sugar. A fancy paper or a napkin may be put round. Serve with cream and sugar, or a puree of fruit. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. to 2s.
A late-Victorian fruit soufflé built on a thick cooked custard base, which is what makes it forgiving compared with a bare egg-white soufflé. The base can be made ahead; the whites cannot.
- The hinge: cool the base properlyThe flour-and-arrowroot custard must be boiled to thicken and then cooled to barely warm before the whites go in. Fold hot base into stiff whites and they deflate on contact, leaving a heavy pudding.
- MeasuresHalf a pint of pulp is 10 fl oz Imperial, near enough to 1 1/4 US cups; that is roughly 1 lb of hulled berries put through a sieve. A gill is a quarter of a pint, so half a gill of cream is 2 1/2 fl oz, about 5 tablespoons.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the recipe names no oven term to translate. For the half hour stated, a moderate oven of around 350°F is a reasonable modern starting point; hotter and the top risks setting and cracking before the centre has risen.
- The sugarHalf a pound to this quantity of pulp is Victorian sweetness, and the sliced fruit adds more. Reducing it to 4 or 5 oz loses little but the cloying edge.
- MaraschinoThis means the clear cherry-stone liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of bright red cherries. A dry kirsch is the closest substitute.
- CarmineCochineal-based red colouring, still sold as a food colour, though it is an insect derivative and not vegetarian. A few drops of any red colouring will do, or leave it out and accept a pinker-brown soufflé.
- ArrowrootUsed alongside the flour for a clearer, lighter set. Cornflour works but gives a slightly heavier, more opaque base.
- Dish and dredgingButter and sugar a soufflé dish of about 1 1/2 quarts; this quantity fills it generously. The "fancy paper or napkin" the recipe puts round the dish is for presentation at table. The sugar dredged on near the end glazes the top under the last of the heat.
- ServingServes six, and only straight from the oven — it will start to sink within a couple of minutes. Have the cream or fruit purée already on the table.
Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery was compiled for middle-class households in the 1870s and 80s, and its habit of quoting a probable cost — 1s. 8d. to 2s. here — tells you the book was written for people who kept accounts. The soufflé itself is French in name and method, from souffler, to blow or puff, and it entered English cookery books through the professional French chefs who dominated grand-house and hotel kitchens in the nineteenth century. What marks this as a Victorian version rather than a modern one is the custard base thickened with both flour and arrowroot, the heavy hand with sugar, and the assumption that a dish should be coloured to look like what it is made of — strawberry pulp cooked into a custard turns a dull greyish pink, hence the carmine. The maraschino is a period signature too: the Dalmatian cherry liqueur was a fashionable flavouring for sweet dishes throughout the century, used much as vanilla extract is now.