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Pine-apple Soufflé
Ingredients.
Three ounces of Pine-Apple.
Three ounces of Flour, sifted.
Three ounces of Sugar.
Two ounces of Butter.
Half a pint of Milk.
Yolks of three Eggs.
Whites of four Eggs.
Melt the butter in a stewpan, and add the flour and milk; cook well; add the sugar and the pineapple, previously cut into dice; add the yolks one by one; whip the whites very stiff; stir in the mixture very lightly; pour into a prepared soufflé mould; steam one hour.
This is a soufflé in the older sense: a flour-thickened panada lightened with whipped whites and steamed rather than baked, so it comes out firmer and far less likely to collapse than a modern baked soufflé.
- The hinge: cool the panada before the yolksThe hinge: let the panada cool a little before the yolks — the butter-flour-milk base is cooked well, then best left to cool somewhat before the yolks go in one at a time. If it is still very hot the yolks can set into grains.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups or 285 ml. The finished panada should be a thick, glossy paste, not a pourable sauce.
- Ounces by weightThree ounces of flour is about 85 g (a scant ¾ cup), three ounces of sugar about 85 g (a scant ½ cup), two ounces of butter about 55 g. These are weights, and the ratio of flour to milk is what makes the pudding hold together.
- StewpanA straight-sided saucepan with a lid. Use a heavy-based pan; the panada catches easily once the flour thickens.
- The extra whiteFour whites to three yolks is deliberate — the surplus white gives lift without extra fat. Whip to firm peaks, not dry and grainy, and fold in a third first to slacken the base before the rest goes in.
- Prepared soufflé mouldButter the mould generously and dust it with caster sugar, which gives a crisp edge and helps release. Fill no more than three-quarters, cover with buttered paper or foil pleated across the middle, and tie or crimp it down so condensation cannot drip in.
- The pineappleThree ounces is about 85 g, cut in small dice. Fresh fruit should be fine here: it goes into the hot panada, which will largely deactivate the bromelain, and there is no gelatin to ruin. Tinned pineapple must be drained hard and patted dry or the extra syrup slackens the mixture.
- Steaming one hourSet the mould on a trivet in a pan of gently simmering water reaching halfway up the sides, lid on, and top up with boiling water as needed. A tester should come out clean and the pudding should shrink slightly from the sides.
- Yield and servingServes four. Turn out at once and send it to table hot, with a thin apricot or pineapple sauce, or cream. Left standing it firms and dulls.
Victorian and Edwardian cookery books distinguished the baked soufflé, eaten within seconds of leaving the oven, from the steamed soufflé pudding — same panada, same whipped whites, but cooked in a covered mould over water, which produced something sturdier that could survive the journey from a basement kitchen to a dining room upstairs. That practicality is one reason steamed versions are common in the pudding chapters of period manuals. The pineapple is the luxury note: through much of the nineteenth century pineapples in Britain were either imported at great expense or raised in heated "pineries" on large estates, and a pinery-grown fruit was a byword for conspicuous spending. By the later part of the century tinned pineapple from Singapore and later Hawaii had brought the flavour within reach of many more households, which may help explain how often it turns up in creams, soufflés and charlottes of the period.