Chocolate Souffle

YES! YES! YES! The (silent) scream of triumph. I did it! I did it!. Puffy souffle with staying power!


This time I did everything properly. I followed the recipe exactly. Buttered and sugared the souffle dishes. All the eggs were at room temperatures. The oven was exactly 350 degrees.


One more shot of victory.
I was a little disappointed with how the souffle tasted piping hot from the oven. I thought it tasted like sweet omelette. But once it cooled a little, it became the best chocolate cake ever - with crunchy sugar by the edges, light and melt-in-your-mouth texture and intense chocolate flavor.


After a few minutes, it sank in the middle.


But still looked pretty and tasted even better.

Grapefruit Souffle

Ha ha! Success! Well, sort of. Look at how beautifully my souffle rose....



But then about half a minute later, it sank.



I finally went out and bought two 6-oz ramekins made especially for souffle. I almost followed Martha Stewart's Grapefruit Souffle with Ginger except that I didn't have ginger and I didn't want 6 portions of souffle (which must be eaten immediately.) So I tried to third the recipe and ended up with 1 grapefruit, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon corn starch, 1 teaspoon flour, 1 egg yolk and 2 egg whites with some salt and cream of tartar.

What could it be? Was it because I didn't beat egg whites long enough? I whipped it to soft peak. Maybe I need a stiffer peak. Or was it because I didn't have enough egg white to hold all the filling?



Anyway, I will try again with Mark Bittman's chocolate souffle next weekend.

At least, this time I got a much better result than last week. At this rate, I'll be souffle god whose souffle has a staying power for more than one minute by Christmas!

Apple Souffle

My first souffle. Collapsed. Failed.


Just out of the oven, started to sink.


Didn't have souffle baking dish. Used assortment of bowls instead (one of the reasons for my downfall.) The jam har did the worst. The thing exploded and spilled over in the oven.

I'm not giving up. At least I learned that souffle is pretty easy to prepare once I have everything ready at room temperature. I'll be back. Next time I'll have a proper souffle dish and will follow the recipe.