Susan and the Crown: A 1963 Cheese Soufflé
There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from carving a trench into something you’ve just spent twenty minutes trying not to deflate.
We learned that this week.
Not in a boardroom. Not in a battlefield. In a kitchen, holding a teaspoon over a bowl of airy cheese and egg whites, rereading a 1963 instruction that says, very calmly, “To form crown…”
A crown.
Susan does not think small.
If you’ve been following this slow march through the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook, you know we didn’t begin with the soufflé. We began in the safer territory of Susan’s Ways With Cheese, which sounds like a pamphlet you’d find in a church vestibule but turns out to be a technical apprenticeship disguised as comfort food.
First came Susan’s Scalloped Potatoes. Slice evenly. Layer patiently. Let heat do its work. Then, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, where flour and butter became structured instead of a paste, and we learned that stirring is not the same thing as thinking. After that, the Cheese and Rice Soufflé with Green Beans — our first flirtation with lift. A hint that maybe food could rise if we handled it gently enough.
Each dish used the same familiar cast: milk, flour, fat, cheese, and eggs.
And then we reached Cheese Soufflé for Six.
Our table stakes rose to six eggs.
Half a pound of processed sharp Cheddar.
Three hundred degrees.
The recipe doesn’t shout. It assumes. It assumes you’ve learned how to build a sauce without scorching it. It assumes you understand that egg whites demand a steady hand. It assumes you won’t fling open the oven door mid-bake just to see what’s happening.
This time, something had changed.
The bowls were ready before the eggs were cracked. A large one for the whites, because we’ve learned that optimism without space leads to disaster. The casserole was chosen deliberately. The oven preheated before ambition got ahead of us.
The whites whipped into glossy peaks. Not dry. Not collapsing. Just standing there like they believed in themselves. The cheese sauce came together smoothly and thickly, with a hint of cayenne that whispered rather than shouted. Folding felt rhythmic instead of frantic.
Then, with a teaspoon, we carved a shallow path about an inch from the edge, all the way around, forming the crown. It felt absurd and slightly regal at the same time. Who among us regularly sculpts dinner?
We slid it into the oven and obeyed the rule written in plain 1963 authority: do not open the oven while the soufflé is baking.
At 300°F, nothing dramatic happens. There is no explosive rise. Just a slow, steady lift. Patience is humming behind the oven door.
When it emerged 1¼ hours later, it was golden and lightly cracked, the crown visible around the edge like a modest halo. It did not tower. It did not demand applause.
It rose enough.
And when we cut into it, it was super light, almost airy, and yet strangely filling. Six eggs and half a pound of cheese do not vanish simply because you’ve whipped them. They rearrange themselves into something delicate but substantial. The texture was cloudlike. The flavor is warm and steady. We loved it.
Which is when it became clear that Susan’s Ways With Cheese was never about cheese alone.
It was about progression.
Scalloped potatoes taught control. Macaroni and cheese taught structure. The rice soufflé introduced lift. And this dish pulled it all together. Same ingredients. Higher expectation.
What changed wasn’t the recipe.
It was us.
We no longer scramble mid-step. We anticipate. We understand why the casserole must be ungreased. We understand why the crown matters. We understand that “stiff but not dry” is balance, not guesswork.
Susan wasn’t training chefs.
She was training capable people.
People who could separate six eggs without flinching. People who could trust that if they did their part, the rise would come.
The soufflé did not soar to the ceiling.
It didn’t need to.
It rose. It held. It could have fed six.
And somewhere between carving that shallow trench and resisting the oven door, we realized something small but meaningful:
We trust the rise now.
Susan would approve.
Cheese Soufflé for Six
(From The Best of Susan, 1963)
Ingredients
1½ cups milk
or
¾ cup evaporated milk plus ¾ cup water
6 eggs
¼ cup butter or margarine
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
Speck cayenne pepper
½ lb. process sharp Cheddar cheese
Directions
Start heating oven to 300°F. In saucepan, heat, but do not scald, milk. Separate eggs, putting whites in large bowl, yolks in smaller one.
In double boiler, melt butter or margarine. Stir in flour, then heated milk, salt, and cayenne; cook, stirring, until smooth and thickened. Thinly slice cheese right into sauce. Stir until cheese melts completely and sauce is velvety smooth; remove from heat.
With fork, beat egg yolks until well blended. Stir in a little of cheese sauce. Slowly stir this mixture back into rest of cheese sauce.
With electric mixer or hand beater, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Slowly pour in cheese sauce, folding until no large areas of egg white remain.
Pour mixture into ungreased 2-qt. casserole up to within ¼ inch of top. (Bake any extra mixture in small ungreased casserole.)
To form crown, with teaspoon, make shallow path in soufflé mixture about 1 inch from edge of casserole all the way around. Bake, uncovered, 1¼ hr.; don’t open oven while soufflé is baking.
Serve at once, as is or with Quick Mushroom Sauce. Sautéed tomato halves and crisp bacon are nice accompaniments. Makes 6 servings.
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