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Fig Souffle
4 Cut a fig (of some large, fine brand) into quarters and mix with vanilla cream, put in a stem ice cream glass and pour some of the fig juice over the top. The figs give a fine flavor to the cream. Fleur d'Orange.
Sundae proportion ice cream, orange syrup, whipped cream, and orange cut in cubes. Strawberry Flower is the same, only strawberries are used. We recommend the use of American Concentrated Syrups, as they require no compounding, except dilution with simple syrup. The best formulas for their use will be found under their proper headings.
A fountain "souffle" involves no eggs and no oven — the word was fountain shorthand for a soft, piled-up dish served in a stemmed glass. Everything here is assembly work, and the quality rests entirely on the fruit.
- The figs"Some large, fine brand" points to a packed, preserved fig rather than fresh or dried fruit; the reference to a brand and to pourable "fig juice" both suggest fruit put up in syrup. Fresh figs carry no juice to pour over the top; if you use them, you need a syrup of your own. Dried figs will not work without stewing them soft first.
- Vanilla creamAt the fountain this is vanilla ice cream, not a custard sauce or whipped cream. Let it soften a minute or two before you fold the fig quarters through, or the fruit will just sit on top.
- Stem ice cream glassA footed glass of the sort used for ice cream; the book gives no size or shape. Any stemmed dessert or coupe glass of single-serving size will do.
- Sundae proportionThe trade shorthand for a standard single fountain serving; the book does not spell out the amounts. Work to one scoop of ice cream with enough syrup to sauce it and a spoon of whipped cream on top.
- Fleur d'Orange and Strawberry FlowerThese are two further sundaes tucked into the same paragraph, not variations on the fig. Each is ice cream, its matching fruit syrup, whipped cream, and fruit -- orange cut in cubes in one, strawberries in the other.
- American Concentrated SyrupsA commercial branded line the book is promoting; the instruction to dilute with simple syrup rather than "compound" it applied to those products only. Use any good fruit syrup, or the drained syrup from the fig jar, reduced slightly if it is thin.
- YieldOne glass. Multiply straight up; nothing here needs scaling adjustments.
Soda fountain manuals of the early twentieth century borrowed kitchen vocabulary freely and loosely — "souffle," "parfait," "charlotte" and "frappe" all appear at the fountain attached to dishes a pastry cook would not recognise. The names sold the item; a fig souffle reads better on a wall card than figs on ice cream. Figs themselves reached the American fountain as a canned and preserved good, and preserved fruit in heavy syrup was exactly what the trade wanted: shelf-stable, portioned easily, and carrying its own sauce. Books like this one were part trade catalogue, part instruction manual, which is why a recipe for figs and ice cream ends with a recommendation to buy a particular line of concentrated syrups.