For Soufflés
One gill of Whipped Cream.
Quarter of an ounce of Gelatine (dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of water). One and a half Whites of Eggs (stiffly whisked).
Two ounces of Pistachio Nuts, blanched, pounded, and rubbed through a wire sieve.
One teaspoonful of Brandy.
One ounce of Castor Sugar.
A few drops of Orange Flower Water.
This is a component list rather than a worked method: a cold, gelatine-set pistachio soufflé of the sort late-Victorian and Edwardian kitchens turned out in a paper-collared case. The method was assumed to be known from a master recipe elsewhere in the book, and the ingredients themselves are worth reading closely.
- Why it cannot be made as writtenThe whites are stiffly whisked and folded into cream and gelatine, and nothing in the preparation is ever heated. Raw egg white carries a real, if small, risk of Salmonella, and the finished sweet is held cold for hours before serving, which does nothing to reduce it. Anyone wanting a cold pistachio soufflé should work from a current recipe that addresses the egg.
- A gillAn Imperial gill is 5 fluid ounces, so a little over half a US cup. The recipe does not say whether the gill is measured before or after whipping; if it is cream measured after whipping, the quantity of liquid cream involved is roughly half that.
- Quarter of an ounce of gelatineAbout 7 g, or one standard envelope of powdered gelatine, which is a heavy set for so small a mixture. Period gelatine and isinglass were less consistent in strength than the modern product, so a recipe of this date may call for more than would be needed now.
- One and a half whitesFractional eggs turn up in recipes of this period. Weighing is the only sane approach: a modern large white is about 33 g, so this is roughly 50 g.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar, ground finer than granulated so it dissolves in cold mixtures without grittiness. Granulated sugar pulsed briefly in a spice grinder is the usual substitute.
- Pistachios, pounded and sievedThe nuts are blanched to strip the skins and keep the colour green, then pounded to a paste and forced through a wire sieve to remove fibre. A food processor gets close, but the sieving step is what produced the smooth texture the recipe expects — skipping it leaves the mixture sandy.
- Orange flower waterA distillate of bitter-orange blossom, still sold for baking and Middle Eastern sweets. Strengths vary enormously between brands, and "a few drops" is meant literally; too much reads as soap.
- YieldThe quantities suggest two small moulds or one soufflé case of about a pint — a single course for two or three people, not a dinner-party centrepiece.
Cold soufflés like this one belong to a moment when leaf and powdered gelatine had become cheap and reliable enough for a professional kitchen to build a whole class of sweets on them, from soufflé glacé to Bavarian creams and moulded jellies. The name is borrowed rather than earned: nothing is baked and nothing rises, but the mixture was set in a straight-sided case with a paper collar so that it stood proud of the rim in imitation of a hot soufflé, then the collar was peeled away at the table. Pistachio, prized for its colour as much as its flavour, was one of the standard flavourings of the genre alongside coffee, chocolate and vanilla, and the pairing with orange flower water and a spoonful of brandy is characteristic of high-class English cookery's debt to French pâtisserie.