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Bread Pudding Souffle
Or Bread Soufle. For this make the bread custard, but instead of baking stir the mixture in a saucepan over the fire till it thickens and becomes like paste. Take it off, and when cool enough not to cook them add 6 or 8 beaten yolks. Then beat all the whites that have been left over to stiff froth, and stir them into the mixture. When this is baked it rises high above the top of the pan or mould.
This entry is a variation, not a standalone recipe: it assumes you have already made the book's bread custard (bread or crumbs soaked in scalded milk with sugar and eggs). What follows is the technique that turns that mixture into a soufflé.
- The hinge: cool before the yolksThe author says it plainly, and it is the whole point of the method: let the thickened paste cool until it is warm rather than steaming before the yolks go in. Added straight off the fire they may scramble, and the finished souffle will be grainy.
- What "like paste" meansStir over medium heat until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan in a mass and a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track. This is a panade; it should be stiff, not pourable.
- Egg proportions"All the whites that have been left over" most likely means the whites of the 6 to 8 eggs whose yolks you have just added, together with any left from the custard; the recipe does not spell it out. Whites weigh more than yolks, so expect a loose count — err toward more whites for lift.
- FoldingWhip the whites to soft-firm peaks, not dry. Slacken the heavy paste with a third of them stirred in freely, then fold the rest in two additions and stop while a few streaks remain.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives none. Modern practice for a bread souffle is around 375F, on a low rack, with a buttered and sugared dish so the mixture can climb the sides; leave the door shut for the first 20 minutes.
- Timing and donenessThe book gives neither size nor time; reckon 30 to 40 minutes for a dish of about two quarts. It is done when risen well above the rim, browned, and only slightly loose at the centre when the dish is nudged.
- Serve at onceThe rise the author admires lasts a few minutes. Have the table ready before it comes out, and send a hard sauce, custard sauce or fruit purée with it.
- YieldThe book gives no quantities here; a custard built on a quart of milk would fill a two-quart dish and serve six to eight.
The bread souffle is a thrift dish dressed up. Stale bread boiled with milk into a panade was for centuries a cheap way to give body to a sweet or savoury mixture, and a starch paste holds beaten whites more reliably than a plain custard does — the starch stabilises the foam, which is why a similar construction underlies the cheese souffle. The book is plainly interested in getting several dishes from one preparation: the bread custard bakes as a pudding for one service and, with a saucepan and a few more eggs, rises as a souffle for the next.