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Prune Souffle
12 large prunes 3 egg-whites 3 tablespoons powdered sugar Soak prunes overnight and stew in the same water until tender. Remove stones and mash to a smooth pulp. Beat the egg-whites until stiff, fold in the sugar and then the prune pulp. Turn into a greased baking-dish and bake in a slow oven (300 degrees F.) about twenty minutes. Serve at once with cream, soft custard or any desired sauce.
A three-ingredient souffle that leans entirely on beaten whites for lift, so the folding and the timing decide whether it works.
- Fold, don't stirThe prune pulp is heavy and will deflate the whites if worked in briskly. Add it in two or three additions with a spatula, cutting down and over, and stop while streaks are still faintly visible.
- Oven temperature300F as printed is correct for this style of souffle and is unusually low by modern souffle practice; it sets the whites gently rather than driving a fast rise. Twenty minutes at that heat gives a soft, barely-set centre, so check at eighteen and expect a puff that settles quickly.
- Modern prunesToday's pitted, partly rehydrated prunes do not need an overnight soak. Simmer 12 large prunes (about 4 oz) in water barely to cover for 10-15 minutes until they collapse, then mash or blitz. You want a thick paste, not a wet puree, or the souffle will weep.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term generally means finely ground granulated sugar rather than the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold now. Either works here; superfine or caster sugar dissolves into the whites most cleanly.
- Baking dishA greased 1-quart dish is about right. Butter it and dust with sugar if you want the mixture to climb the sides; the recipe's plain greasing gives a lower, denser result.
- Serve at onceThis is not optional advice with a souffle carried by egg white alone. It will fall within a few minutes of leaving the oven. The original offers cream, soft custard or any desired sauce alongside.
- YieldThree whites and a few ounces of fruit serve two generously, three modestly. Double it for four and use a 1 1/2- to 2-quart dish, adding several minutes.
Fruit souffles of this kind were a staple of American cookery-school teaching in the early twentieth century, and the prune version turns up repeatedly because prunes were cheap, kept indefinitely in the pantry, and were commonly recommended in the period as a wholesome laxative food. Recipes built on nothing but beaten whites, sugar and fruit pulp were also praised as economical and light, suitable for invalids and children, at a time when household magazines and their recipe departments were actively teaching the new domestic science. The dish is closer to what a French kitchen would call a souffle aux fruits or an omelette souffleee than to the flour-and-butter-based souffles that share the name; without a base sauce it depends wholly on the air in the whites, which is why the period instruction to serve it the moment it leaves the oven is repeated so insistently.