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Pouding à la Louis Napoléon
(Hot Entremet.) Ingredients.
Six ounces of castor Sugar.
Three ounces of Flour.
Two ounces of ground Almonds.
Two ounces of fresh Butter.
Some stewed Apricots.
Peaches or other fruit.
Six whole Eggs.
Two ounces of Cornflour.
Twelve drops of Orange-flower Water.
A pinch of Salt.
The book gives the ingredients but no working method, which was common in professional manuals where the cook was assumed to know the form. The proportions point unambiguously to a hot soufflé pudding — the kind baked in a buttered mould, turned out and sent up with fruit.
- What the list actually describesSix whole eggs against three ounces of flour and two of cornflour is soufflé-pudding ratio, not cake ratio. The standard period construction is a panada or thick batter of flour, cornflour, butter and sugar, the yolks and ground almonds beaten in, the whites whipped stiff and folded last, baked in a buttered and sugared mould set in a bain-marie. Treat any reconstruction as inference, not as the book's instruction.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar. Granulated will work in the batter but dissolves less readily in whipped whites; pulse it briefly in a food processor if that is all you have.
- CornflourBritish cornflour is American cornstarch, not cornmeal. It is here to soften the crumb and keep the pudding tender rather than bready.
- Orange-flower waterTwelve drops is a small, precise-looking quantity, well short of a teaspoon, though whether it was meant exactly or as a rough measure cannot be known. Modern orange-flower waters vary widely in strength; add it drop by drop and taste, since a heavy hand turns the whole dish soapy.
- OvenThe book gives neither temperature nor time. A pudding of this type is generally baked in a moderate oven, about 350F/180C, with the mould standing in a water bath so the outside sets before the centre dries. Reckon 35-45 minutes for a quart mould, until it is risen and just firm at the middle.
- The stewed fruitApricots or peaches could be used two ways: some fruit in the bottom of the mould or folded through, and the syrup reduced and sieved for a sauce poured round at table. The book leaves the quantity to the cook; half a pound of stewed fruit is a reasonable working amount.
- Timing at the tableThis is listed as a hot entremet. A pudding of this kind, thickened with flour and cornflour, is sturdier than a true soufflé, but it will still slacken as it cools, so unmould and serve promptly.
- YieldThe quantities give about six servings from a single quart mould, or six to eight small dariole moulds, which bake in roughly 20 minutes.
The name belongs to the long line of Second Empire dishes christened for Louis Napoléon — Napoleon III, president from 1848 and emperor from 1852 — during the decades when French cooking supplied the vocabulary and the prestige of English professional kitchens. Attaching a sovereign's name to a sweet carried no claim that he invented or even ate it; chefs named preparations for royalty, singers, ambassadors and racehorses alike, and a title like this signalled a dish fit for a formal dinner rather than any documented connection. The substance of it is older than the name: a hot soufflé pudding thickened with flour and cornflour, enriched with ground almonds and scented with orange-flower water, a perfume that had been in European confectionery since the seventeenth century and remained, in the era of this book, one of several alternatives to vanilla still in use. Its place in the entremets section reflects the service of the day, when a hot sweet came to table late in a long meal and had to be timed to the minute.