Souffle. Just the mere mention of this word can be enough to make an aspiring chef question his desire to continue along his new chosen path to culinary enlightenment. Souffles have a notorious reputation for being incredibly fussy…just thinking about evil thoughts while in the presence of a baking souffle can be enough to prevent it from ever rising. But as Chef S would explain, anyone can get a souffle to rise dramatically by following just a few simple techniques.
A souffle can be broken up into its two main components, a base and an egg white foam. The base provides all of the souffle’s flavor (more on that later) while the egg whites, beaten until just the right texture, perform the magic act of rising the souffle while it cooks. Regular egg whites aren’t much more than just protein and water; however, when beaten they transform from a sticky and slimy consistency into great billows of white, fluffy foam with an increase in volume of up to 8 times their former selves. It is this foam, when incorporated into the souffle base, that serves as the sole leavening agent for the souffle. Proper care must be taken during the laborious task of beating egg whites until they are ’stiff but not dry’ to ensure that the egg whites are not over-beaten, which non-intuitively can cause them to break.
The souffle chef has a few options to consider when beating egg whites, bowl type and whether to use a machine or hand for, ahem…beating purposes. In class we’d be forgoing the machine in favor of our hand in order to really see and feel the process from start to finish. We’d also be using copper bowls, as opposed to stainless steel bowls. Because of the positive reactive properties imparted by the interaction of the eggs and the metal, copper offers numerous advantages…beaten egg whites will tolerate heat better, will have less of a tendency to ‘break’ during during the beating stage, and will have increased volume of foam generated when compared to the same amount of egg whites beaten in a stainless steel bowl. Copper is not without its disadvantages though…it is expensive and special care must be taken to clean and maintain copper bowls.
As I mentioned earlier, since the base provides all of the souffle’s flavor, it is important to over-season it before adding the egg white foam to it. When you add the egg white foam, you essential are diluting the base and increasing its volume, so it needs to be flavored strongly in order to counteract this. I knew that Jen and I had adequately seasoned our base when we both tasted it and made the same face at each other…the same face you make when you eat when you eat something excessively salty.
Although the base itself has no real leavening properties, what you put into the base will affect the way the souffle rises. Chef S explained that there were numerous different souffle base ‘types’, a few different examples of which were prepared by my classmates and I. My partner Jen and I prepared a Sweet Potato and Gruyere Souffle. Components of our base included a sweet potato puree, grated cheese, and a bechamel sauce – a French ’mother’ sauce consisting of a roux and scalded milk. Those three ingredients created a light base that would provide for a nice rise, but in order to get the souffle to set in its risen position, we’d have to add some structural support to the base in the form of egg yolks. This is what our souffle looked like immediately after we removed it from the oven:
A few other notes to consider before embarking on preparing a souffle. You can usually make the base beforehand and store it until you are ready to beat the egg whites, but once you start beating the egg whites, there will be no turning back. If left to sit around, even an egg white foam beaten in a copper bowl will begin to break, so you must have everything ready to go once the egg white foam is ready. This includes having your oven preheated and having a buttered and dusted souffle dish and collar nearby. A collar is nothing more than a piece of tin foil, folded over on itself a few times in order to achieve the right width, that gets wrapped around the souffle dish. It is used as a mold to help shape the part of the souffle that expands out of the dish. Our dish and collar were dusted with parmesan cheese and you can see the effect that this had; the collar gave a form for the expanding souffle to rise in and the parmesan cheese dusting (in theory) provides something for the rising souffle to adhere to, thus allowing our souffle to achieve extra height during baking. Additionally, you want to have kitchen twine nearby to tie the collar to the dish and you’ll also want a rubber spatula on hand to immediately fold the egg whites into the batter when they are ready. Folding is a gentle technique used to incorporate the egg white foam into the base in such a way so that the foam is damaged as little as possible. It is a slightly awkward motion that takes a bit of getting used to but is an essential step in the process. Minimize damage to the egg white foam and you’ll be maximizing your souffle’s rising ability.
Unfortunately, all good souffles will eventually fall. You can really see that even with the structural support provided by the egg yolks, and the long, undisturbed initial 30 minute baking (followed by another 30 minutes of baking), 5 minutes after removing our souffle from the oven, it has lost a great deal of it’s height. Oh well, dig in!
And here’s a slice of our souffle. Man, did we ever make a handsome souffle. Perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked on the inside, nice brown crust on top, and really good.
A similar process to the one that Jen and I employed was used to make a Savory Vegetable Souffle:
Here is a Cheese Souffled Roulade filled with Ham Salad:
The method for making the roulade souffle is similar to the two above souffles, the main difference being that this is baked in a small sheet pan instead of a dish. Immediately after baking, it is rolled up and allowed to set in the rolled-up position before being unrolled, filled, rolled up again, then sliced.
Now on to the sweet stuff. Here is an Amerene (wild cherry) Souffle served with a Creme Anglaise:
Souffles like this, prepared with fruit purees will often rise quickly and greatly, but because they are so light will not generate enough structure while baking to support that height and will ‘crash and burn’ almost immediately after removing from the oven. To counteract this, Chef S added something called a bouille (basically, a cooked pudding base made from a 4:2:1 ratio of milk-sugar-flour) to the fruit puree base in order to help provide the final product with a bit more structure.
A Banana Chocolate Souffle served with a Chocolate Creme Anglaise Sauce:
There are no words to describe the joy I felt when I took a bit of this so I won’t attempt to provide any. Chocolate souffles can be made in two ways…you can either melt chocolate, add sugar, and mix in egg yolks to achieve a souffle that is dark and intense in chocolate flavor or you can ribbon (vigorously whisk together) sugar and egg yolks to incorporate air, then add the melted chocolate to achieve a souffle that is a bit lighter in color, flavor, and texture. Serving it with a chocolate sauce always helps too.
Lemon Souffled Pudding with Blueberry Coulis:
This dish perfectly demonstrated the idea of a ‘French creamy’ souffle, where the outside is set and the inside is still wet. If you’ve ever ordered anything at a restaurant called ‘Molten Chocolate’ something-or-other, there’s a good chance you were served something like this. While this works for a sweet souffle, for the savory souffles that the class prepared, we were definitely aiming for a more cooked interior, which also helps the souffle to maintain its structure post-cooking.
We also spent some time discussing custards. The lone custard offering on the day, Creme Caramel (just like Flan):
Chef S discussed the two different basic types of custards, stirred (cooked over the stove top) and baked. This creme caramel is an example of a baked custard where an cream/half-n-half and egg mixture is poured into small ramekins that have been previously filled with caramel. The ramekins are baked in a bain marie (water bath) in the oven, low and slow, so that the custard sets smoothly and doesn’t form any pits or air pockets. The final product should be rich and creamy tasting and yet light in texture and these did not disappoint.
I really am surprised by how easy it was to make our souffle. The tricky parts in the process are getting the timing down and performing the egg white foaming and folding steps correctly. Once you can do those things, you can have yourself a dish that is sure to impress anyone you serve it to. I’m looking forward to having a chance to practice my souffle making skills on the wife. I’d wager that she is also looking forward to that as well. Since both Chef S and Chef D have encouraged students to practice at home and because I haven’t yet had a chance to prepare a creme anglaise sauce, I think I’ll use her as a guinea pig and attempt to make that chocolate souffle this weekend.
