Egg Souffle
1 pt. milk. 1 kitchen spoon flour. 1 tablespoon butter. Cream butter and flour and put in milk, cook until thick. When cool, add beaten yolks of 5 eggs, then add well beaten whites; cook inside stove in pan of water.
A bare-bones soufflé base, written for someone who already knew what a soufflé should look like. Two things are missing from the text: any seasoning, and any indication of time or temperature.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe beaten whites go in last and must be folded through in two or three additions with a spatula, cutting down and lifting over. Stirring them in collapses the foam and you get a dense baked custard instead of a soufflé.
- "1 kitchen spoon flour"An imprecise old measure meaning a large serving spoon rather than a measuring spoon; it is sometimes read as roughly 2 tablespoons, but there is no fixed equivalent and it is genuinely ambiguous here. Two tablespoons of flour with 1 tablespoon of butter is a thin base for a full pint of milk; for a base that will hold five eggs, equal weights of butter and flour at about 3 to 4 tablespoons each is more reliable.
- "Cook inside stove in pan of water"A bain-marie in the oven, not on the stovetop. Set the buttered dish in a roasting pan, pour in boiling water to come halfway up the sides, and bake at about 350F. The recipe itself gives no temperature.
- TimingNone is given. A single 1 1/2 to 2 quart dish takes roughly 40 to 50 minutes; it is done when well risen, browned, and only slightly wobbly at the centre. Individual ramekins take 20 to 25 minutes.
- Cool the base properly"When cool" means lukewarm, not cold. Hot base scrambles the yolks; refrigerator-cold base stiffens and will not accept the whites evenly.
- Season itThe recipe lists no salt. Add about 3/4 teaspoon salt and a little white pepper to the thickened base, plus grated cheese, or nutmeg, if you want it to taste of anything.
- Yield and servingFive eggs and a pint of milk serve four to six as a light supper dish. Serve it the moment it leaves the oven; it begins to sink within a few minutes.
The word comes from the French souffler, to blow or puff. The soufflé was established in professional French cookery well before it appeared in American household manuals, and this version strips it down to milk, flour, butter and eggs, with no cheese, no liqueur, and no fuss. The recipe leaves salt, oven temperature and baking time to the cook's judgement; printed thermometer readings became common in cookbooks as gas and electric ranges with calibrated dials spread through the 1920s and 1930s.