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Strawberry Souffle
Pick the stems from three pounds of ripe strawberries, put these in a saucepan with the grated peel of half a lemon and one teacupful of crushed loaf sugar, and allow to simmer gently by the side of the fire. Beat the yolks of four eggs in one pint of milk, sweeten to taste with sugar, stand the basin in a saucepan containing hot water, and stir the custard mixture over the fire till it is thick. Put the strawberries round a glass dish, forming a high wall and leaving a hollow in the center, which fill with custard; whisk the white of four eggs to a firm froth, pour them over the souffle, cover with powdered sugar, and serve.
Despite the name, nothing here is baked or folded — this is a cold assembled dessert of stewed strawberries, stirred custard and raw meringue, built in a glass bowl at the last minute. Read it as a composed sweet rather than a soufflé and the odd instructions fall into place.
- The custard is the hingeStir the yolk-and-milk mixture over hot, not boiling, water until it coats a spoon — roughly 170-180F. Take it off the heat the moment it thickens; a pint of milk to four yolks is a thin custard and it will curdle quickly if the water beneath comes to a boil.
- Loaf sugar and the teacupfulLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken up for use; crushed loaf sugar is simply granulated sugar today. A teacupful in this period is smaller than a modern measuring cup — reckon on about three-quarters of a cup, and taste the fruit as it cooks rather than trusting the figure.
- "By the side of the fire"On a range this meant the cooler edge of the stovetop, away from the firebox: a bare simmer for perhaps 10-15 minutes. On a modern burner use the lowest setting, and stop while the berries still hold some shape, or the wall they are meant to form will slump.
- Three pounds of strawberriesThat is a generous amount of fruit for the pint of custard it surrounds. If the berries throw off a lot of juice, drain some off before building the wall or the custard in the centre will be flooded.
- Raw egg whitesThe whisked whites are poured over and served without cooking. Anyone serving children, pregnant women, the elderly or the immune-compromised should use pasteurized whites or bottled pasteurized egg white, which whips to a firm froth with a little patience.
- Powdered sugarNineteenth-century powdered sugar meant sugar ground fine, without the cornstarch in modern confectioners' sugar. Either works as a dusting here; superfine sugar is closer to the original.
- Assemble and serve immediatelyUnsweetened whisked whites begin to drain and weep before long, and the fruit wall softens against the custard. Build it just before it goes to the table.
- YieldThree pounds of fruit and a pint of custard would serve eight or so, though the recipe states no yield and builds the whole thing in one glass dish.
By the 1890s "soufflé" seems to have loosened in English-language kitchens to cover dishes finished with beaten egg white, hot or cold, and this one — fruit banked around a hollow of custard, cloaked in raw froth — sits closer to that broader family than to the baked soufflé proper. It is closer in effect to a trifle or fool, and its appeal was visual: a glass dish showing red fruit, yellow custard and white foam in three clean layers. Oscar Tschirky, the hotel's maître d'hôtel and the name on this book, was not a cook by trade but a compiler and arbiter of what the house served. The scale of the fruit is worth noting too: three pounds of ripe strawberries for one dessert was a statement of season and supply at a time when berries came and went in a few weeks.