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Sweet Potato Puff
Put two cups of mashed potato over the fire with the beaten yolks of two eggs, one-half cup of cream, and a little salt; mix well; remove from the fire; add the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs, heap into a conical loaf on a buttered form, brush with white of egg, and brown in a hot oven.
A soufflé in all but name, baked free-standing rather than in a dish. The whole recipe turns on how you treat the egg whites.
- Fold, do not stirThe whites go in after the pan comes off the heat, and they are the only thing lifting the loaf. Fold them through in two or three additions with a spatula and stop while streaks are still visible; beat them in and you have mashed sweet potato.
- Yolks over direct heatTwo cups of hot mash plus raw yolks will scramble if the pan stays on the burner. Work over low heat, stir constantly for a minute or two to thicken, and pull it off as soon as it holds together.
- "A hot oven"Conventionally taken as somewhere around 400-450F. The mixture is already cooked, so the oven is only there to set and colour the outside; watch it and take it out when well browned rather than timing it.
- "A buttered form"The wording is "on a buttered form", which points to something the mixture is piled up on rather than poured into: most likely an oven-proof platter or shallow pan. Butter it generously; there is nothing else keeping the base from sticking.
- QuantitiesTwo cups of mashed sweet potato works out at roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb of raw potatoes, baked or boiled and put through a ricer. The cream is unspecified as to richness. Note that the glaze needs a third egg white, since both of the first two go into the body.
- Sweet potato, not yamSweet potato varieties -- the recipe does not say which kind. Modern orange "yams" carry more moisture and sugar than paler, drier-fleshed sweet potatoes; if you use them, bake rather than boil so the flesh dries out, or the puff may slump.
- Yield and servingThe quantities suggest a side dish for about four. Serve it promptly; being egg-white raised it will settle as it cools, though the mash gives it more body than a true souffle.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern and magazine publisher, and its vegetable chapter reflects the period's enthusiasm for dressing plain American produce in French clothing: the humble sweet potato, a Southern staple eaten baked in its skin for generations, is beaten with cream and eggs and served as a puff. Puffs, soufflés and "forms" filled turn-of-the-century cookbooks because they demonstrated skill with eggs. Piling the mixture into a free-standing cone rather than baking it in a dish gives the vegetable a silhouette, arriving at the table as an object in its own right.