Endangered Soufflé: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

A trope that is little-used these days without actually being [[Discredited Trope|discredited]], this could be found occasionally on [[Dom Com]]s 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, thus "spoiling" the event.

 

 

See also [[Carrying a Cake]].

 

* [[Gaston Lagaffe]] once bakes an enormous souffle to cheer up his chronically depressed cousin. Initially it seems to work, but collapses at a critical moment, resulting in the "most depressing sight ever." Probably justified, since Gaston is a [[Cordon Bleugh Chef]] often bordering on a [[Lethal Chef]].

** He also accidentally transformed a Grand Marnier bottle into a rocket grenade while trying to flambee some crepes, missing the french president's limousine in a nearby parade by only a few meters.

 

* 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.

 

* In ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'', Alice keeps trying to shush the kids and then collapses the souffle herself by knocking over a pan with a loud crash.

* An episode of ''[[Are You Being Served?|Are You Being Served]]'' had the opposite problem, in which Mr Humphries was trying to hold down a souffle that was growing out of control.

* In one episode of ''[[My Three Sons]]'', "Happy Birthday, World," son Robbie tries to earn extra money by setting up a home business making birthday cakes. At one point, while he's making a set of cakes, a door is slammed in the house and causes the three cakes in the oven to collapse.

** Oddly enough the cakes that do come out of the oven fine look very much to have been topped already and put back in the pans upside-down giving them perfectly square tops.

* ''[[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.

** Parodied and justified in later episode "The Mutants are Revolting", which features a souffle that contains nitroglycerin.

* This happens to Reverend Lovejoy in ''[[The Simpsons]]'', when a phonecall from Ned Flanders distracted him long enough from his soufflé for it to collapse.

{{quote|'''Lovejoy:''' Damn Flanders... }}

[[Category:Reality Is Unrealistic]]

[[Category:Food Tropes]]