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Iced Soufflé with Maraschino
Ingredients.
Half a gill of Syrup.
The Yolks of six Eggs.
One whole Egg.
Half a pint of whipped Cream.
One tablespoonful of Maraschino.
Break the eggs into an egg bowl, whisk well, then add the syrup and the Maraschino, and whisk it over hot water until it resembles "sponge-cake mixture." Now whisk on ice till it is cold, then stir in the whipped cream. Put a stiff paper band round a soufflé mould and pour in the mixture, filling the mould about one inch above the paper; then place the mould in a tin box with a tightfitting lid, and surround it with crushed ice mixed with coarse salt; let it freeze for about eight hours. If you use little moulds this quantity will fill about nine, and these will take four hours to freeze. As the ice melts the water must be poured off and fresh ice added. When frozen, remove the paper band or bands, and sift some powdered macaroons or grated chocolate on the top, to give the appearance of baked soufflés.
Iced soufflés may be varied by using different flavourings, such as orange-flower water, vanilla, coffee, orange or lemon essence, or by adding a purée of apricot, strawberry, raspberry or pineapple to the mixture before freezing; only enough fruit-pulp should be used to give the flavour of the fruit.
Biscuits Glacés en Caisses.
Prepare as for Iced Soufflé, but before moulding add four ounces of pounded ratafias and half a pint of whipped cream, and freeze in small paper cases.
This is a frozen sabayon-and-cream mixture — what a modern pastry kitchen would call a soufflé glacé — dressed up with a paper collar so it comes to the table looking like a hot soufflé that has risen. The old ice-and-salt box can be replaced by a freezer, but nothing else about the method should change.
- The hinge: whisk cold before the cream goes inThe egg foam must be whisked over the hot water until it holds a thick ribbon, then whisked again over ice until it is completely cold. Fold whipped cream into a mixture that is even slightly warm and it will slacken and the frozen soufflé will set dense and icy rather than light.
- Half a gill of syrupIn British measure a gill is a quarter of a pint, so half a gill is about 2½ fl oz (roughly 70 ml). The syrup meant here is a plain sugar syrup — sugar boiled with water and cooled — not golden syrup or corn syrup.
- Egg temperature"Resembles sponge-cake mixture" means the sabayon has thickened and lightened to the ribbon stage. Cooked over simmering water in a bowl that does not touch the water, it should reach about 160-165F (71-74C) by the time it thickens; an instant-read thermometer is worth using, since nothing later in the recipe applies heat.
- MaraschinoA dry cherry liqueur distilled from marasca cherries, still made in Italy and quite unlike the syrup from a jar of neon cocktail cherries. One tablespoon in this quantity gives a faint perfume; you can double it without harm, though more alcohol will soften the freeze.
- RatafiasSmall crisp almond macaroons. Italian amaretti, crushed, are the closest thing on a modern shelf; four ounces is about 115 g.
- Freezing without a churnThe ice-and-salt box was simply a domestic freezer. A modern freezer at 0F (-18C) will do the same work — allow roughly the times given, four hours for small moulds and up to eight for a large one — and there is no water to pour off. The mixture is aerated by the eggs and cream, so it needs no stirring during freezing.
- The paper collarA band of baking parchment, doubled and tied or taped round the mould so that it stands above the rim, lets you overfill as the recipe directs and gives the risen-soufflé silhouette. Peel it away while the sweet is still hard, straight from the freezer.
- Yield and servingAbout nine individual moulds, or one soufflé dish of roughly a pint and a half. Sift the crushed macaroons or grated chocolate on at the last moment, so it stays dry, and let the moulds stand two or three minutes before serving.
- Fruit variationsThe instruction to use only enough purée to flavour is worth heeding: fruit pulp is mostly water, and too much of it freezes hard and grainy. Reduce or sieve very juicy purées first.
Iced soufflés belong to the late-Victorian and Edwardian dinner table, where the cold sweet was expected to arrive looking like something else — a frozen mixture disguised, by a paper collar and a dusting of crumbs, as a soufflé fresh from the oven. The base is the same egg-yolk-and-syrup sabayon that underlies bombe and parfait mixtures, and because it is aerated by whisking rather than by churning, it could be frozen still, in a mould buried in ice and coarse salt, without an ice-cream freezer. Maraschino, generally traced to the cherry distillers of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, was one of the standard flavourings of the professional confectioner's repertoire in this period, and appears constantly alongside noyau, orange-flower water and vanilla in books of this kind. The paired Biscuits Glacés en Caisses shows the economy of the professional kitchen: one base mixture, extended with crushed ratafias and more cream, frozen in paper cases and sent out as a second dish entirely.