Souffle – ohdenny

On French Food Safari on SBS, Vincent Gadan made this amazing looking soufflé. Looked light and fluffy, and the host Maeve O’Meara seemed overly pleased with it too. Having only attempted a Chocolate Soufflé previously, I thought it was a fantastic idea to use raspberries instead of the incredibly rich chocolate or cheese for a soufflé. Have a look below!

Raspberry Soufflé (Vincent Gadan Recipe)
Serves 4

Preparation Time
30 minutes

Cooking Time
25 minutes

Ingredients
softened butter
freeze-dried raspberry powder (see Note)
2-3 punnets of raspberries (I used frozen raspberries but for decoration fresh is preferable)
1 tbsp water
50 g caster sugar
1 tsp (heaped) cornflour
1 lemon, juiced
4 egg whites (125 g)
icing sugar, to dust
rose petals, to serve

Instructions

1. Butter 4 individual soufflé dishes, coating well. Add a generous sprinkle of freeze-dried raspberry powder (or just caster sugar) to each dish and tilt the dishes until the powder covers the butter.

2. Reserve 12 fresh raspberries for decorating the soufflés. Put the rest in a blender and blend to a purée. Sieve the purée and measure out 170 g.

3. Put the water and 30 g of the sugar in a saucepan and heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Mix the cornflour with the lemon juice in a small bowl and add to the sugar syrup along with 170 g of raspberry purée. Bring to the boil and cook for around 30 seconds, until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

4. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Start whisking the egg whites – either by hand or with an electric mixer. Whisk to soft peaks, then add the remaining sugar and keep whisking to a firm meringue.

5. Whisk a spoonful of the egg whites through the cooled raspberry mixture until thoroughly combined. Use a spatula to gently fold the raspberry mixture through the bowl of remaining egg whites until there is no egg white visible.

6. Spoon the mixture into the dishes, filling right to the top. Tap the dishes gently to remove any air pockets, and smooth the tops.

7. Place the soufflés in a deep dish and fill with cold water to halfway up the sides of the dishes. Bake in the oven for 10–12 minutes, until well risen and lightly golden on top.

8. Immediately dust the soufflés with icing sugar and decorate the tops with the reserved fresh raspberries and a rose petal on each. Serve with the remaining raspberry purée, breaking the surface of your soufflé to pour it in.

Impressions

The time consuming part was sieving the purée to get rid of all the seeds because I didn’t have a particularly good sieve, however I think it managed to come together in the end. My only concern was that the soufflé was very sour! The raspberries were extremely tart, so the 50g of sugar probably wasn’t enough in my situation. I’d probably have gone with 150g caster sugar as to be honest I couldn’t really find much sweetness in it. Maybe it’s supposed to be like that, I’m not too sure but I’d prefer some sweetness to come through at the very least.

This raspberry soufflé is also different to the chocolate soufflé which I found to be like a light cake of sorts. The raspberry soufflé on the other hand is wetter in texture, and while the outside will be firm, inside it’s moist and almost pudding like in terms of texture. Worth a try though, hey.

I’ve always wanted to eat souffle, and when we went to the Conservatory at Crown, their chocolate souffles were quite the popular dessert so I didn’t have a chance to taste it.

So at last, I tried making it myself. I found this recipe on Taste.com.au, and it’s the basic run of the mill type of recipe but since I had never made it before and it didn’t require that many eggs I chose this one

Chocolate Souffle (Taste.com.au)
Preparation Time
20 minutes

Cooking Time
20 minutes

Ingredients (serves 6)
Melted butter, to grease
4 1/2 tbscaster sugar
60g butter
2 tbs plain flour
160ml (2/3 cup) milk
210g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
3 eggs, separated
125ml (1/2 cup) thin cream
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing sugar, to dust

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush six 160ml (2/3-cup) ovenproof souffle dishes with melted butter to grease (using upward strokes on side). Sprinkle the inside with 1 1/2 tablespoons of caster sugar, shake out any excess.

2. Melt 30g of the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and use a wooden spoon to stir for 1 minute or until mixture is smooth and begins to bubble. Remove from heat, gradually add milk, stirring until smooth and combined. Return to medium heat, stir until mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring. Remove from heat.

3. Stir in 125g of the chocolate and remaining caster sugar until combined. Transfer to a bowl. Add egg yolks and stir until well combined.

4. Use an electric beater to whisk egg whites in a clean, dry bowl until firm peaks form. Use a metal spoon to fold one-third of the egg whites into chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining egg whites until just combined.

5. Spoon the mixture evenly into prepared dishes. Place on a baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until well risen.

6. Meanwhile: combine remaining chocolate, remaining butter, brown sugar, cream and vanilla essence in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until chocolate melts and mixture is well combined. Simmer, uncovered, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Place in a jug.

7. To serve, place ramekins on plates. Dust with icing sugar. Use a spoon to make a hole in top of each souffle, pour in a little chocolate sauce.

Impressions:
I found it to be quite nice and moist on my first tasting, but I wasn’t too sure if I was doing it right since they seemed to sink after taking it out of the oven. You also kinda need to serve them all hot and fresh out of the oven otherwise it just doesn’t retain that moistness. Unless I was just doing it all wrong. I don’t know