A trope that is little-used these days without actually being
discredited, this could be found occasionally on
Dom Coms up until the early 1970s, particularly those with child characters. A cook is attempting to bake a souffle for a fancy party or important dinner. Unfortunately, they must do so under riotous circumstances, with a consequent paranoia about the souffle collapsing. Naturally, some event — rambunctious children or a slamming door or a car backfiring — does indeed make the souffle fall, and thus "spoil" the event.
Two variations on this trope exist: In one, the rambunctious behavior around the souffle is quieted down with no ill effects, only to have a relatively-distant disturbance (slamming door, car backfire) collapse the souffle after it is "safe" (the souffle can be replaced by say, a sleeping baby). The other works much the same, except that it is the cook him- or herself which triggers the collapse.
In reality: The only way to drop a
soufflé into a puddle of goo is to:
- Open the oven prematurely (sponge cakes are also subject to this)
- Improperly construct it so that the fat in the yolk mixture destabilizes the foamy whites mixture. Reference the relevant Good Eats episode.
See also
Carrying A Cake.
Examples:
Fan Fic
- Used straight but comedically in the notorious 'Sith Academy' Slash Fic series; the humor of the situation comes from the fact that the person baking the chocolate souffle is Darth Maul, a vicious-minded Sith Lord who otherwise has the patience of a hyperactive weasel, while what causes it to collapse (and Maul to fly into a homicidal rage) is two Jedi Knights (Obi Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn, as it happens) having noisy sex in the apartment next door.
Film
- It happens with a cake in Harriet the Spy, only Harriet deliberately stomps and knocks over some chairs after the cook tells her to be quiet.
- The 2000 Charlie's Angels movie has Lucy Liu's character Alex attempting to keep her souffle intact while the trailer she's in is getting perforated with bullets. The souffle never stood a chance.
- Appears in How To Murder Your Wife with the wife's famous "lasagna souffle".
- A recurring gag in the Shaquille O'Neal comedy Steel.
Live Action TV
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Time Squad, the one with Edgar Allan Poe.
- Inverted in The Tick, where a mad baker attempts to create a giant souffle to smother The City. To collapse the souffle, the Tick must shoot himself out of a cannon at the speed of sound.
- In an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, Spongebob causes the collapse of Squidward's souffle after it's removed from the oven.
- Futurama. When long-time chef show host Helmut Spargle is replaced by the Emeril-esque Elzar, Elzar "BAM"s and causes Spargle's souffle to collapse.
- A plot point in an episode of The Fairly Oddparents. Early in the episode, Timmy's mom tries to make a pink souffle, which collapses and turns grey (due to her poor cooking skills, although I think noise was also involved). Later, when Timmy makes a wish that everyone and everything were the same, the world goes greyscale, and everyone becomes identical blobs. Cosmo and Wanda can't find Timmy until he recreates his trademark pink hat using another of his mother's collapsed souffles, which was supposed to be grey.
