Soufflé “à la d’Orléans”

Soufflé à la d’Orléans (a light baked cream pudding with liqueur-soaked Reims biscuit and candied fruit) teaches the discipline of moisture. The biscuit must drink peach liqueur and kirsch, then surrender every loose drop before it meets the base. Saturated gives perfume and tenderness; wet gives weight. That is the one true thing to know before touching a pan.

The original entry assumed a pastry station with cream soufflé-preparation ready in quantity, Jeanne-d’Arc biscuits within reach, semi-candied fruit already diced, and an oven held for service. At home, one small crème pâtissière, four egg whites, a straight-sided dish, and a properly heated oven do the work. The brigade batch is scaffolding and goes; the thick cream base, liqueur-soaked biscuit, one ounce each of cherry and angelica, and last-minute folding are the dish and stay. Scarce Jeanne-d’Arc biscuits become biscuits roses de Reims, their honest modern kin. One cook, one stove, one evening.

When it is right, the crown is butter-gold, the centre creamy, and the fruit arrives in ruby and green dice between bites of perfumed biscuit. Bring the base to lukewarm, fold without crushing those pieces, and bake at once. Most of all, drain the biscuit completely before you fold.