On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 219

invert it onto the serving platter and put it on a small stove, so that it will rise up; when risen to a handsome enough height, powder with sugar and glaze with the fire iron without touching the omelette Serve hot as an entremet Timbales of Cream You will have a good pastry cream, bitteralmond biscuits, candied lemon peel, orange flower; add to these egg whites whipped into snow You will have little timbale dishes greased with good fresh butter: you powder them with bread crumbs; then you fill them with your cream, and cook them in the oven When they are done, turn them out and serve as a small hot entremet — Vincent La Chapelle, Le Cuisinier moderne, 1742 The Soufflé Principle, Up Side: It Must Rise The physical law that animates the soufflé was discovered a few decades after its invention by — appropriately — a French scientist and balloonist, J A C Charles Charles’s law is this: all else equal, the volume occupied by a given weight of gas is proportional to its temperature Heat an inflated balloon and the air will take up more space, so the balloon expands Similarly, put a soufflé in the oven and its air bubbles heat up and swell, so the mix expands in the only direction it can: out the top of the dish Charles’s law is part of the story, but not the whole story — it accounts for about a quarter of the typical soufflé rise The rest comes from the continuous evaporation of water from the bubble walls into the bubbles As portions of the soufflé approach the boiling point, more liquid water becomes water vapor and adds to the quantity of gas molecules in the bubbles, which increases the pressure on the bubble walls, which causes the walls to stretch and the bubbles to expand  ... inflated balloon and the air will take up more space, so the balloon expands Similarly, put a soufflé in the oven and its air bubbles heat up and swell, so the mix expands in the only direction it can: out the top of the dish... direction it can: out the top of the dish Charles’s law is part of the story, but not the whole story — it accounts for about a quarter of the typical soufflé rise The rest comes from the continuous evaporation of. .. water from the bubble walls into the bubbles As portions of the soufflé approach the boiling point, more liquid water becomes water vapor and adds to the quantity of gas molecules in the bubbles, which increases the