Cheese Soufflé.—To make a small cheese soufflé in a round cake-tin, proceed as follows:—Make the tin very hot in the oven. Put in about an ounce of butter, so as to make the tin oily in every part inside. The tin must be tilted so that the butter pours round the sides of the tin as well as the bottom. Take two eggs, separate the yolks from the whites, and beat the whites to a stiff froth; beat up the two yolks very thoroughly with a quarter of a pint of milk. Add to this two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese; add this mixture to the beaten-up whites, and mix the whole carefully together. Now pour this mixture into the hot buttered tin, which should be five or six inches deep, and bake it in the oven. The mixture will rise to five or six times its original depth. As soon as it is done, run with the soufflé from the oven door to the dining-room door. However quick you may be, the soufflé will probably sink an inch on the way. Some cooks wrap hot flannel on the outside of the tin to keep up the heat. If you have a folded dinner napkin round the tin for appearance sake, as is usually the case, fold the napkin before you make the soufflé, and make the napkin sufficiently big round that it can be dropped over the tin in an instant. The napkin should be pinned, and be quite half an inch in diameter bigger than the width of the tin. This is to save time. Delay in serving the soufflé is fatal.
Omelet Soufflé, Sweet.—In making an omelet soufflé, sweet, you can proceed in exactly the same manner as making a cheese soufflé, with the exception that you add two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar instead of two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. The omelet will, however, require flavouring of some kind, the two most delicate being vanilla and orange-flower water. You can flavour it with lemon by rubbing a few lumps of sugar on the outside of a lemon, and then pounding this with the powdered sugar. It must be pounded very thoroughly and mixed very carefully, or else one part of the omelet will taste stronger of lemon than the other. Some powdered sugar should be shaken over the top of the soufflé just before serving.
Omelet Soufflé (another way).—When a soufflé is made on a larger scale, and served up on a flat dish, it is best to proceed as follows:—Take six ounces of powdered sugar, and mix them with six yolks of eggs and a dessertspoonful of flour and a pinch of salt. To this must be added whatever flavouring is used, such as vanilla. This is all mixed together till it is perfectly smooth. Next beat the six whites to a very stiff froth; mix this in with the batter lightly, put two ounces of butter into an omelet-pan, and as soon as the butter begins to frizzle pour in the mixture. As it begins to set round the edges, turn it over and heap it up in the middle, and then slide the omelet off on to a plated-edged baking dish, which must be well buttered. Put it in the oven for about a quarter of an hour, to let it rise, shake some powdered sugar over the top, and serve very quickly.
Omelet, Sweet.—Make an ordinary [plain omelet] with six eggs and either two or four ounces of butter, as directed for making omelet, plain. Instead of adding pepper and salt to the beaten-up eggs, add one or two tablespoonfuls of finely powdered sugar. At the last moment, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the omelet, and just glaze the sugar with a red-hot salamander.
Omelet with Jam.—Make a plain [sweet omelet] as directed above, adding rather less sugar—about half. If you make the omelet with two ounces of butter, and turn it over, put a couple of tablespoonfuls of jam on the omelet, and turn the half over the jam. It is best to put the jam in the oven for a minute or two to take the chill off.
If you make the omelet with four ounces of butter, you must put the jam by the side of the omelet and let the thin part of the omelet cover it. Of course, the question what jam is best for sweet omelet is purely a matter of taste. Most good judges consider that [apricot jam] is the best, and if the sweet omelet itself be flavoured with a little essence of vanilla, the result is generally considered one of the nicest sweets that can be sent to table. [Strawberry jam], especially if some of the strawberries are whole, is also very nice. The objection to [raspberry jam] is the pips.
A most delicious omelet can be made by chopping up some preserved slices of pine-apple, and placing this in the omelet, and making the pine-apple syrup hot and pouring it round the base. [Red-currant jelly], [black-currant jam], and [plum jam]can all be used. One of the cheapest and, in the opinion of many, the best sweet omelets can be made with six eggs, two ounces of butter, and three or four tablespoonfuls of orange marmalade. In this case it will cost no more to rub a few lumps of sugar on the outside of an orange, and pound these with the powdered sugar you use to sweeten the omelet. If the marmalade is liquid, as it often is, one or two tablespoonfuls of the juice can be poured round the edge of the omelet.
Omelet au Rhum.—As a rule, spirits are not allowed in vegetarian cookery. An omelet au rhum is simply a sweet omelet, plain, with plenty of powdered sugar sprinkled over the top, with some rum ignited poured over it just before it is sent to table. The way to ignite the rum is to fill a large spoon, like a gravy-spoon, and hold a lighted wooden taper (not wax; it tastes) underneath the spoon till the rum lights. The dish should be hot. It may be a consolation to teetotallers to reflect that the fact of burning the rum causes all the alcohol to evaporate, and there is nothing left but the flavour.
Omelet au Kirsch.—Proceed as above, substituting Kirschenwasser for Rum.
Omelet, Vegetable.—A [plain omelet] can also be served with any purée of vegetables, so that we can have—Asparagus Omelet, Artichoke Omelet, French Bean Omelet, Celery Omelet, Spinach Omelet, Mushroom Omelet, Tomato Omelet, &c.