Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website. (Mandatory blog-tracking lines)
One thing I knew I wanted to do as soon as I returned from Cameroon was to join the Daring Kitchen. Last Monday I completed my first Daring Cooks challenge: Soufflé! I decided to wait until I flew home to Georgia to surprise my sister for her 30th birthday to make the soufflé for two reasons: first, I thought it would be fun to make my first soufflé with my mom and my sister; and second, I don’t have a mixer and making soufflé requires beating egg whites until they are stiff.
So having never made soufflé before, we decided to make two different kinds at once, and to make up our own recipes, modified from the delicious recipes provided by the challenge hosts. We started with a savory Spinach Garlic Parmesan Souffle. Although it could have used a scotch more salt, it was so creamy and delicious! The biggest issue was that there wasn’t enough of it. We barely got a chance to photograph it before it was devoured like a freshly killed antelope set upon by a pride of hungry lions. That poor soufflé didn’t stand a chance.
While the savory souffle was in the oven rising, we set to work making a raspberry chocolate souffle. That creamy blend of raspberries and chocolate smelled so good baking in the oven, and my stomach was still growling from not enough savory soufflé, it was all I could do to wait for it to be done. For this souffle, we used an 85% cocoa dark chocolate, which was a tad too bitter for some of our taste testers, so in making it again I’d probably use a slightly sweeter chocolate. We also threw in a dash of cayenne pepper, which my sister and I really liked, but my mom didn’t (her sensitive tongue protested the hint of heat).
I enjoyed this challenge so much and I can’t wait to make soufflé again. I think I’ll wait until I have a mixer of my own though. I’ve whipped up some heavy cream by hand in my time, but after seeing how much power went into beating those egg whites stiff, I’m saving up for this machine.
