Chocolate Soufflé

I have been DYING to try making soufflés at home ever since watching the most epic and toughest pressure test in the history of MasterChef Season 3, where Frank and Josh has to make three different types of soufflé in 60 minutes; one savory cheese, one dessert chocolate and one dessert raspberry.  The opportunity came when my friend Lindie has some ramekins and we were going to make some crème brûlée together, but we don't have a torch yet.  So at one of the BBQ dinner gathering, with Lindie's ramekins and Freddy's stand mixer, we let the baking dream begins!

Blog by Josh Marks from MasterChef Season 3.
http://www.ishootonions.com/

Ingredients:

Vanilla Pastry Cream Base
2 cups milk
40 g butter
2 vanilla beans (spilt and scraped) - replaced with 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract
40 g corn starch
80 g egg yolks (approx. 4 yolks)

Chocolate Soufflé
100 g egg whites (approx. 3 1/2 eggs)
50 g castor (berry) sugar
pinch of salt
50 g vanilla pastry cream base
100 g chocolate - used 50g of milk chocolate chips and 50g of dark chocolate chips

***tips: one of the main tips for perfect soufflés is the egg whites. They must be handled with clean hands, free from all oil.

butter – as needed
sugar – as needed
butter 4 ramekins and coat with sugar

Procedure:

preheat oven to 425F

1. In a saucepan heat half of the milk, all of the butter and the 2 vanilla beans. place on medium heat.
2. In a bowl, mix the rest of the milk with the cornstarch and beaten egg yolks to make a slurry.
3. Once the milk is at scald point, whisk in slurry and cook to boil. Take off heat and reserve for soufflé assembly.
4. Melt chocolate over double boiler.
5. In a stand mixer, add egg whites and a pinch of salt. Whisk on medium until frothy. Slowly rain in sugar to make meringue. Increase speed from 4 to 5 to 6 as your meringue gets stiffer.
6. When you take your meringue out of the mixer, it should be a pointy tip on your whisk attachment and should droop over like an elf’s hat.
7. Fold 50 g pastry cream base into melted chocolate
8. In 3 steps fold the meringue into the chocolate mixture while rotating bowl. No Streaks! (it's ok to mix until no streak even the meringue looks deflated)
9. Place mixture into ramekins, flatten it with a small offset spatula and wipe the rim with your thumb to create a “moat”. DO NOT BANG THE BOTTOM OF THE RAMEKIN ON THE COUNTER.
10. Place in oven at 425 degrees F for 11-12 mins
11. Serve with icing sugar and seasonal fruits

Recipe adapted from Josh Marks http://www.ishootonions.com/the-most-amazing-chocolate-souffle/

Thoughts:

1. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! The texture is spot on, between a mousse and cake, airy and light.  I don't think there's anything to change about the recipe! IT IS PERFECT.  I just need to get smaller ramekins next time, so that the soufflé can poof over the ramekins to be as authentic as possible.  So happy ^^