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Fruit Souffle
3/4 cup fruit pulp, peach, apricot, or quince Whites 3 eggs Sugar Few grains salt Rub fruit through sieve; if canned fruit is used, first drain from syrup. Heat, and sweeten if needed; beat whites of eggs until stiff, add gradually hot fruit pulp, and salt, and continue beating; turn into buttered and sugared individual moulds, having them three-fourths full; set moulds in pan of hot water and bake in slow oven until firm, which may be determined by pressing with finger; serve with Sabyon Sauce.
A meringue-based souffle set in a water bath rather than raised in a hot oven. It stands or falls on the state of the fruit pulp: too wet and the whites collapse, too stiff and it will not fold in.
- Slow ovenBake at 300-325F. Any hotter and the outside sets before the centre, and the souffle bursts, then sinks.
- The water bathSet the moulds in a deep pan and pour in hot water, as the recipe specifies, part way up their sides. The gentle, damp heat is what makes this a set, custard-like souffle rather than a puffed one.
- Fruit pulpThree-quarters of a cup of sieved pulp should be thick enough to mound on a spoon. Canned peach or apricot drained of syrup is usually still loose; cook it down in a wide pan for a few minutes before sweetening, or the whites will deflate.
- Adding the hot pulpBeat the whites to firm peaks first, then pour the hot pulp in a thin stream while beating, as for an Italian meringue. Adding it all at once cooks and curdles the foam.
- SugarThe amount is left to the cook. Quince, being tart, will need considerably more than a sweetened canned peach, which may need none at all. Sweeten the pulp while it is hot, not the whites.
- MouldsIndividual moulds of about 5 to 6 ounces, filled three-fourths full as the recipe directs, should give roughly four to six. Butter them and dust with granulated sugar, which gives the mixture something to climb and releases it cleanly.
- Timing and donenessExpect 20 to 30 minutes. The finger test in the original still works: the top should spring back and leave no wet print.
- Sabayon sauceSpelled Sabayon or zabaglione elsewhere; egg yolks, sugar and wine whisked over hot water until thick. Make it while the souffles bake so that both can be served at once.
Fruit souffles of this kind appear in the American cooking-school cookbooks of around 1900. The mixture uses no yolks, no cream and no butter beyond greasing the moulds. Peach, apricot and quince were all fruits commonly put up at home or bought in tins at the time, and quince was a more familiar household fruit then than it is now. The sabayon sauce served alongside is made with egg yolks, though the recipe does not say the pairing was arranged for that reason.