Last Day Souffle!

August 16 - It’s crazy to think this summer is already over and that I’ll be heading back to school in just a few days. Somewhere in all the cookbooks and printed recipes, I lost track of the calendar and the months flew by. For our last cooking day, Brenda and I decided to tackle a dish that we’ve always wanted to make, and one that really scared me: the soufflé. All I knew was that many chefs dread making them, and home cooks tend to avoid them. But Brenda insisted that Alice Waters believes it’s something everyone should know how to make, and so I knew I had to.

We decided to make a chocolate soufflé recipe from one of Brenda’s cookbooks. We were really hungry and had just made a ton of pesto, so we figured we could eat pasta for dinner real quick and make the soufflé for dessert. If I’m being honest, I’ve definitely handled recipes better. I didn’t read this one as thoroughly as I should’ve and set myself up for a half hour of running around, getting ingredients together and frantically trying to make the soufflé base on an impatient hot burner. I had to thicken milk with flour and sugar, melt chocolate, and add coffee, egg yolks and vanilla extract to it. Being a bit clueless, Brenda and I weren’t sure the consistency we were looking for, but all the chocolate was melted and we decided it was good to go. (I’ve been looking at other recipes, and most use a double bowler to melt the chocolate, and that seems to make more sense.)

Next, we had to beat the egg whites and cream of tartar in a mixer. I’ve seen enough baking shows in my day to know what stiff peaks look like, but I’m not great with a mixer, so this took a little while to figure out. However, a few minutes and some seriously stiff peaks later, and the egg whites were folded into the chocolate and coffee base, and our soufflé was ready for the oven. Popping it in and setting our timer to forty minutes, I felt relieved to be done with the whole process, and really not confident with what I had done.

Forty minutes flew by while we ate dinner, and out came the soufflé. It looked alright, I think? It had risen for sure, but it could’ve been a lot taller, and there were cracks on the top. After looking into this a bit, I think I overbeat the egg whites and that’s what led to our result. Additionally, I think we undercooked it, because the inside was runny and more lava-cake like. Don’t get me a wrong, I don’t think there’s anything disappointing about a lava cake, but it was definitely not the consistency we were looking for. So all in all, even though it’s hard to go wrong with something hot and chocolatey, I think I should give the soufflé another shot someday, and probably be a bit more prepared for it.

Here’s a recipe sort of similar to the one we made, try it out and let me know if you get a better result!

#cooking #recipe #chocolate #souffle #cherrytable