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Cherry Souffles
Put four ounces of flour into a saucepan, and pour in slowly one and one-half pints of milk, and stir it over the fire until thick and smooth. When cooked, take the mixture off the fire, and continue stirring until nearly cold. Warm four ounces of butter and whisk it until creamy; then mix in four ounces of sugar, six well-beaten eggs, and a small quantity of powdered sugar. Stir all these together with a pound and a half of black cherries. Butter a mould-mould, and sprinkle in some grated breadcrumbs, shaking out the superfluous crumbs. Pour the mixture into the mould, cover it with a sheet of buttered paper, and bake in a moderate oven. When cooked, turn the mould out onto a hot dish, and serve it at once.
A soufflé in the older sense: a flour-and-milk panade enriched with butter, sugar and whole eggs, baked in a mould rather than a straight-sided dish. It behaves more like a baked pudding than a modern soufflé, which is to its advantage — it will not collapse the moment it leaves the oven.
- Weights and volumesFour ounces of flour is about one cup; four ounces of butter is one stick; four ounces of sugar is a scant 2/3 cup. A pint here is 16 fl oz, so one and a half pints of milk is three cups.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as about 350F, though the book gives no temperatures. A large filled mould will likely need something in the region of 45 to 60 minutes; it is done when the centre is set and springs back, and a skewer comes out clean.
- The panade is the hingeAdd the milk to the dry flour gradually and off the heat first, then cook it out, or it will lump. Stirring it until nearly cold matters: hot panade will scramble the eggs when they go in.
- Whole eggs, not separatedSix whole beaten eggs give a dense, custardy crumb rather than a risen foam. If you want lift, separate them and fold the whipped whites in last — but then it must be served straight from the oven and cannot be turned out.
- "Mould-mould"A printer's stutter for a plain charlotte or pudding mould, roughly two quarts. Butter it heavily and coat with dry breadcrumbs so the pudding releases; a metal mould turns out more reliably than ceramic.
- Buttered paperParchment, buttered on the underside, laid loosely over the top. It keeps the surface from crusting and browning before the middle cooks.
- The cherriesA pound and a half of black cherries, stoned — a sour dark cherry such as a Morello suits the dish, though 'black cherries' in this period could equally have meant a sweet variety. Drain them well; wet fruit will sink and waterlog the base.
- The unlisted sugar"A small quantity of powdered sugar" is in addition to the four ounces; a tablespoon or two is the sense of it, though 'powdered sugar' in this period often meant finely ground granulated rather than modern confectioners' sugar. A dusting of sugar over the turned-out pudding is a plausible finish, though the recipe does not call for one.
- YieldEight generous servings. Serve warm, with a cherry sauce or lightly sweetened cream.
Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maître d'hôtel whose name fronts this 1896 volume, was cataloguing the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen, and this dish sits squarely in that middle ground. The panade-bound soufflé — flour cooked in milk, then enriched and baked — is the older, sturdier French technique, distinct from the pastry-cream soufflés that later took over restaurant menus; because it is turned out of a mould, it might reasonably be called what the Germans would call an Auflauf and the French a pouding soufflé. Black cherries baked into a batter or custard is a Central European habit that travelled well. The instruction to serve it "at once" on a hot dish is a reminder of how these books were written: for a kitchen sending plates out under covers, not for a household oven fifteen feet from the table.