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Sherry
Mix the cornflour with the sugar in a stewpan, stir in the milk, add an ounce of butter and the vanilla pod. Stir this over a slow fire until it comes to a boil. Continue to stir over the fire until the mixture detaches easily from the stewpan. Let it cool, and remove the vanilla pod (this may be used again if taken care of).
Pick the strawberries and rub them through a hair-sieve. Stir this pulp into the above before it is quite cold, and also the remainder of the butter. Stir in the yolks of eggs and the cream, and whisk over the fire until the eggs begin to set. Dissolve the gelatine in a little water, add to it a tablespoonful of red currant jelly and a few drops of liquid carmine or cochineal. Strain this into the cornflour mixture, Whisk the whites of eggs to a stiff froth, and add also. The Maraschino should now be added.
Fill a silver-plated soufflé dish with this preparation. Keep it in a case well charged with ice. Dissolve about two tablespoonfuls of red currant jelly, and when nearly cold pour it over the top of the soufflé to form a layer. It is well to fasten a paper band round the soufflé case so that it comes about an inch above the rim.
This should be removed before sending it to table.
A Victorian cold strawberry soufflé — a cooked cornflour custard lightened with whipped whites, set with gelatine and served frozen or iced in a collared dish. The instructions assume the quantities were printed in a separate ingredient list, so treat this as a method rather than a complete formula.
- Quantities are missingBeyond "an ounce of butter", a tablespoonful of currant jelly for the gelatine and about two tablespoonfuls for the glaze, no amounts are given here. Working proportions for a dish of this type run to roughly 1 pint milk, 1 oz cornflour, 3 oz sugar, 4 yolks, 4 whites, 1/2 pint cream, about 1/2 oz gelatine and a good pound of strawberries, but that is a reconstruction, not the book's own measure.
- Cornflour is cornstarchBritish cornflour is American cornstarch, not fine maize meal. It must be slaked with the sugar and cold milk before heat, as written, or it will lump.
- The hinge: do not boil the egg stageOnce the yolks and cream go in, the mixture is a custard. "Whisk over the fire until the eggs begin to set" means, in modern terms, roughly 170-180F over the gentlest heat or a bain-marie and no further; a boil will curdle it and no amount of sieving recovers the texture.
- GelatineNineteenth-century gelatine was usually sold in sheets or leaf, soaked and melted, though granulated kinds were also available. Powdered gelatine should be bloomed in cold water for five minutes and then warmed to dissolve, never boiled. Add it while the custard is warm enough to accept it, or it will set in threads.
- Carmine and cochinealLiquid carmine and cochineal are insect-derived red colourings; cochineal extract is still sold, and labelling rules require it to be named because it can provoke allergic reactions in some people. Any red food colour does the same work, and ripe strawberries plus the currant jelly give most of the colour anyway.
- Raw whitesThe whisked whites go in uncooked and are never heated again. Use pasteurised egg white if serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised.
- "A case well charged with ice"This means an ice cave or pail packed round the dish with ice; the recipe does not specify salt, and the gelatine suggests a firmly set rather than a frozen sweet. Overnight in the refrigerator gives a softer set; a spell in the freezer firms it further.
- The paper bandThe collar of paper standing an inch above the rim lets the mixture set proud of the dish, imitating a hot soufflé that has risen. Use parchment or foil, tie or tape it firmly, and peel it away only once the sweet is fully set.
- Hair sieveA fine nylon or stainless sieve replaces it. Rubbing the strawberries through, rather than blending, keeps the seeds out and the purée from going frothy and pale.
The heading "Sherry" almost certainly belongs to a neighbouring entry rather than to this dish, which is a soufflé glacé aux fraises — a strawberry cold soufflé of the kind that dominated the sweet course in late-Victorian and Edwardian professional cookery. The whole point of the paper collar is illusion: a cold sweet dressed to look like a hot soufflé straight from the oven, standing high above its rim, with the currant-jelly glaze doing the work of a browned top. Such dishes were only possible in kitchens with a steady supply of block ice, brought in by the Norwegian and North American ice trade. The maraschino is one of the era's characteristic flavouring liqueurs, distilled from marasca cherries around Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, and cochineal the standard red of the confectioner's shelf long before coal-tar dyes displaced it. The silver-plated dish and the instruction to remove the band "before sending it to table" are reminders that this is a recipe written for staff cooking for someone else's dining room.