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Souffle Omelet
6 eggs 1 tablespoonful cornstarch 3 heaping tablespoonfuls (3 1/2 teaspoonful rose extract ozs.) sugar Some raspberry preserves Beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar thoroughly together; then add the cornstarch and the rose extract. Add a pinch of salt to the whites of eggs and beat them up stiffly. Mix them carefully with the yolks and sugar. Turn half of the mixture into a buttered fireproof dish, spread over with raspberry preserves, then put the remainder of the mixture on the top, smooth over with a knife, dredge with sugar, and make a few incisions with the point of a knife, so as to form a pretty design.
Bake in a moderately hot oven for twenty-five minutes.
Place the dish on a folded napkin and send to table at once. 6 eggs
A sweet baked omelet soufflé, layered with jam and served straight from its dish. It is a batter of beaten yolks and stiff whites, so everything depends on how gently the two are combined and how quickly it reaches the table.
- Reading the ingredient listThe quantities run as two columns that have been interleaved: 6 eggs, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 3 heaping tablespoons (3 1/2 oz) sugar, rose extract, and raspberry preserves. The measure for the rose extract has been lost in the garbling and has to be guessed; a half teaspoon is a reasonable starting point, and rose is assertive enough that more would dominate.
- Oven temperature"Moderately hot" in period usage is usually taken as somewhere around 375-400F. Hotter and the top sets and cracks before the centre cooks; cooler and it will not rise in 25 minutes.
- The hinge: foldingBeat the whites to stiff but not dry peaks and fold them into the yolk mixture in two additions with a spatula, cutting down and over rather than stirring. Cornstarch stiffened yolks deflate whites quickly, so stop the moment no white streaks remain.
- Fireproof dishThis means an earthenware or china dish that can go straight from oven to table. A 1 1/2 quart shallow baking dish or a 9-inch pie plate works; butter it well, since the sugar in the batter sticks.
- The jam layerWarm and stir the preserves so they spread without tearing the base layer, and keep them off the rim of the dish where they will scorch. A thick preserve stays put better than a runny one.
- Rose extractModern rose extracts and rose waters vary enormously in strength; rose water is much weaker than an alcohol extract and would need several teaspoons to register. Taste the yolk mixture before folding in the whites.
- Timing and serviceTwenty-five minutes gives a set but still moist centre. It falls within a few minutes of leaving the oven, which is why the original insists on the folded napkin and sending it in at once. Serves four to six.
Sweet omelets baked in the dish they are served from were a standard finish to a modest dinner in late Victorian and Edwardian cookery, sitting between the plain fried omelette and the far more demanding soufflé proper. The cornstarch here is doing work: it stabilises the yolks so the whole thing holds its rise a little longer than pure egg would. Rose flavouring, once as ordinary in English and American kitchens as vanilla, is generally said to have been retreating by around the turn of the century, gradually displaced by vanilla and lemon; its pairing with raspberry is an old one, the two being natural companions in the preserving pan long before they met in a baked dish. The instruction to send the dish to table on a folded napkin reflects general period service practice for a hot dish.