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Cheese Souffle (Cup bread crumbs cup sweet)
1 cup bread crumbs. 1/2 cup sweet milk. 4 tablespoons grated cheese. 2 yolks, 3 whites of eggs. 1/2 tablespoon butter. 1/2 teaspoon salt. Pinch cayenne pepper. Speck of soda.
Beat yolks very light, add bread crumbs, milk, cheese and seasoning. Fold in whites and bake in oven until brown.
A crumb-bound soufflé rather than a flour-and-butter one, and much sturdier for it — but the original leaves out the oven, the dish and the time entirely.
- The hinge: fold and bake at onceBeat the whites only to a stiff peak that still bends at the tip, fold them in with a few broad strokes, and get the dish into an already hot oven. A crumb batter will not hold air through a wait on the counter.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives neither temperature nor time. A moderate oven, around 350F, for roughly 25 to 30 minutes, until well risen and browned, suits this mixture; higher heat risks setting the crust before the centre cooks.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured whole milk. The term distinguished it from buttermilk or clabbered milk, both still common household items when this was written.
- Speck of sodaA pinch of baking soda, no more than an eighth of a teaspoon. It slightly softens the crumbs and helps browning; more will give a soapy taste.
- The crumbsUse soft fresh crumbs, not dry packaged ones, and let them stand in the milk a few minutes before the cheese goes in. Dried crumbs absorb far more liquid and will give a heavy, pasty result.
- The cheeseFour tablespoons grated is about an ounce — a deliberately thrifty amount. A dry aged cheddar or Parmesan carries the flavour; a young soft cheese at that quantity will not register.
- The butterMelt it and add with the milk rather than working it in cold, and use the rest of the wrapper to butter a small straight-sided dish of about 3 to 4 cups.
- YieldServes two as a light main course, or three or four as part of a larger meal. It falls quickly, so serve straight from the oven.
The recipe belongs to the run of American cookery published in the shadow of the First World War, when wheat, fat and dairy were all being economised. That context shows plainly here: a soufflé built on a cup of bread crumbs and an ounce of cheese, with a single extra egg white doing the work that cream and butter would do in a French version. The crumb-based soufflé is often said to have been a mainstay of the period's thrift cookery — it uses stale bread, tolerates rough handling better than a béchamel base, and turns a scrap of cheese into a dish.