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Six Yolks of Eggs
Half an ounce of Castor Sugar.
Three ounces of Chocolate.
One gill of Milk.
Quarter of a pound of French Almond Rock (pounded).
Half a pint of Whipped Cream.
Four Whites of Eggs, stiffly whisked.
Half a teasponful of Vanilla Essence.
Boil the chocolate and milk together, and allow them to get cold. Place the yolks of eggs and sugar into a basin and whisk them for five minutes; rest the basin over a saucepan of boiling water and whisk again until the eggs begin to thicken, then whisk them over ice until they are quite cold. Add the chocolate, cream, almond rock, whites of eggs and vanilla essence.
Pour the mixture into a soufflé case which has a band of paper tied around it. Freeze in a wellcharged cave five to six hours. Sprinkle with chopped pistachio nut and serve.
Note. If three-quarters of an ounce of gelatine, dissolved in half a gill of water, be added, the soufflé can be served without freezing.
A late-Victorian iced soufflé of the grand-service kind: a chocolate-praline mousse frozen in a paper-collared case so it stands proud of the rim like a baked soufflé. The reason it cannot be made as printed is the four whisked whites, which never see any heat at all.
- Raw whites, never cookedThe yolks are thickened over a bain-marie, but the four whites go in stiffly whisked and straight into the freezing pail. Nothing in the method brings them to a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and freezing preserves bacteria rather than killing them.
- The yolk sabayon is not a safeguardWhisking yolks and sugar over boiling water until they "begin to thicken" is a visual cue, not a temperature one, and the mixture is chilled over ice the moment it thickens. It cannot be relied on to pasteurise even the yolk portion, let alone the whites folded in afterwards.
- Served soft and slowlyServed soft -- Any dessert built on uncooked egg and half a pint of cream that spends time in the danger zone is a poor risk for children, older diners, pregnant women or anyone immunocompromised. Use a current recipe for frozen souffl"
- A gillIn a British book of this date, a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, five fluid ounces — not the four-ounce American gill. The half-gill in the note is therefore about two and a half fluid ounces.
- French almond rockHard almond praline or nougatine, boiled sugar set with almonds and broken up. It may well have been bought in from a confectioner and pounded in a mortar; the modern equivalent is crushed praline or almond brittle, and it should be ground fine or it will freeze into gravel.
- A well-charged caveThe cave \glmetal pail sunk in a tub of crushed ice and coarse salt. 'Well charged' presumably means freshly packed and heavily salted; five to six hours reflects how slowly that arrangement worked, not how long a modern freezer would need.
- The gelatine noteThree-quarters of an ounce is roughly 21 g of leaf or powdered gelatine, a very stiff set by present standards and a reminder that Victorian gelatine varied widely in strength. It converts the dish to a cold soufflé but does nothing about the raw whites.
- YieldSix yolks, four whites, half a pint of cream and a quarter-pound of praline make a large mould, for a dinner where several sweets were offered.
The iced souffl"