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Vanilla Souffle
Take three ounces of dried flour. Mix it to a smooth paste with two or three table-spoonfuls of cold milk, and add sufficient milk to make up the quantity to three-quarters of a pint. Stir in two table-spoonfuls of sugar, a small pinch of salt, and a few drops of vanilla essence. The quantity must be regulated by the strength of the essence. Stir the milk briskly over the fire till it leaves the sides of the pan. Strain it into a bowl, and when it is cool add the well-beaten yolks of four eggs. Beat the whites of six eggs to a firm froth, mix them lightly with the batter, and half fill a buttered dish with the mixture. Put it into a moderately-heated oven, and turn it about occasionally, that it may be equally baked. When done enough, sift powdered sugar upon it, and serve at once, or it will be spoiled. Time to bake, about half an hour. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A flour-thickened panada soufflé of the classic French type, unusual only in the imperial measures and in one instruction that modern practice flatly contradicts.
- Ignore "turn it about occasionally"This assumes a coal range with hot and cool sides. In a modern oven with even heat, opening the door mid-bake is the surest way to collapse the soufflé. Set it on a rack in the lower third and leave it shut until the last five minutes.
- Oven temperatureA "moderately-heated oven" is roughly 350F/180C. A soufflé of this size wants about 30 to 35 minutes; it is done when well risen, browned, and only faintly wobbly at the centre.
- Dried flourVictorian cooks spread flour in a thin layer in a slow oven, or before the fire, to drive off moisture and make it lump-free. Modern flour is dry and consistently milled; use it as it comes. Three ounces is about two-thirds of a cup.
- Three-quarters of a pintImperial measure, so 15 fluid ounces, a little under two US cups. Whole milk. Mix the flour to a slack paste with a few spoonfuls first, then let the rest down gradually or it will lump.
- "Till it leaves the sides of the pan"Cook the panada until it pulls away in a smooth ball and no longer tastes of raw flour, two to three minutes of brisk stirring after it thickens. Undercooked it stays pasty.
- Cool before the yolks go inStrain out any lumps and let the mixture drop to lukewarm. Yolks added to a hot panada will scramble and speckle the finished soufflé.
- Four yolks, six whitesThe imbalance is deliberate, not a misprint: the extra whites give lift. Fold them in in two or three additions, cutting rather than stirring, and stop while a few streaks remain.
- The dishButter a large straight-sided dish generously and dust it with caster sugar, which helps the mixture climb. Half filling it, as directed, leaves room to rise.
- Vanilla and servingA teaspoon of good extract stands in for the "few drops" of essence, whose strength varied wildly. The warning to serve at once is literal; the soufflé begins to sink within two or three minutes. Serves five or six.
- "Probable cost, 10d"Ten pre-decimal pence.
The panada soufflé, thickened with a cooked flour-and-milk base rather than pastry cream, was a standard sweet soufflé of nineteenth-century English kitchens, taken over from French practice along with the word itself, from souffler, to blow or puff. It demonstrates that beaten egg white, folded rather than stirred and set quickly by heat, will raise a batter without any leavening agent. Vanilla was still a costly import sold mainly as an alcoholic essence of unpredictable strength, which is why the recipe declines to give a measurement and tells the cook to judge by the bottle in hand. The insistence on serving instantly, and the note that the dish will otherwise "be spoiled", reflects a period when soufflés were a mark of a kitchen able to time its cooking to the dining room rather than the reverse.