Strawberry Soufflé

Yields: 2 servings
Level: Quite easy
Duration: 1 hour

This recipe does not use fresh strawberryies, so it has a very subtle strawberry flavor. It does, however, uses fresh strawberry jam, lol. I got a nice Soufflé texture out of it, so I would substitute the strawberry jam with other things such as lemon juice with some lemon zest to make a Lemon Soufflé or a good amount of concentrated passionfruit juice. You can basically substitute the strawberry jam with anything, especially fresh strawberry puree. This is a very light, fluffy dessert made of very few ingredients and basic technique. Very nice to be enjoyed with cold Crème Anglaise or ice cream.

INGREDIENTS

2 (8-oz) heat-proof ramekins

2 large eggs, separated

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons melted butter

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons all purpose flour

1/4 cup cold mlk

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoon strawberry jam

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

3 drops of rose pink food coloring

Preheat oven to 200 degree C (400 degree F)

METHOD

First of all, separate your egg while it's cold. I've heard that separating egg is easier done when it first came out of the fridge. While this recipe includes whipping an egg and getting it volumed, my mom told me that an egg gets to its fullest volume when it's at room temperature. So, while waiting for your egg temperature to go up, you can start preparing the other ingredients...

Second thing you need to do is: with a room temperature butter, brush your ramekins and coat them with sugar (left picture below) and put them in the fridge so the butter hardens up a bit. 

Next, melt the 1tbs+2tsp butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat; cook and stir flour in the melted butter until little bubbles appear, about 2 minutes. 

Pour in milk and cook, stirring continuously, until it really thickens to a dough and pull away from the pan. At this point, take it off the heat and put it in a mixing bowl to cool. 

Once it is cooled, put in the yolks, vanilla extract, strawberry jam and the food coloring. Note that if you use a fresh strawberry puree, you won't need the food coloring. I was too lazy to go to the supermarket to get fresh strawberry and kind of "experiment" with strawberry jam. Anyway, I was too excited stirring that I forgot to take a picture of the mixture...

Next... put your egg whites in a stainless steel mixing bowl. Make sure your mixing bowl is very clean and free of grease when whipping egg whites. (until now, I'm not sure why, but that's what I always read on the Internet, lol)

Whisk it vigorously until a bubble-bath phase, take your 1/4 cup of sugar and put half in. Whisk again until it looks thicker and smoother, then put in the other half. Continue whisking until a shaving-cream consistency. Or until it holds it shape when you lift your balloon whisk, like so:

Add 1/2 of your egg whites mixture to the butter-flour-egg-jam-food-coloring (BFEJFC) mixture and whisk, just to loosen up the BFEJFC mixture. Until it looks like this:

Now, put in the rest of the egg white mixture and fold gently with a spatula. Avoid to lose the air when folding.

Now take out your buttered-and-sugar-coated ramekin and you are ready to pour your batter! Use a ladle and fill in 3/4 of the ramekin. Tap the ramekin on a cloth just to make sure that the batter come down to the bottom.

This is really important to get a flat Soufflé top after baking...

If your final batter is a little runny, do not fill your ramekin to the top. Instead, allow 1/4 inch of space at the top. If your batter is thick, fill it to the top of the ramekin, and flat the top with a knife, then run your finger to the rim of the ramekin. These two techniques are to make sure that the Soufflé rise evenly and does not stick to the rim.

Put your ramekins on a baking tray and place it in the preheated oven for 16 minutes. Do not open the oven door before 16 minutes. Although, I know it can be very tempting to take a peek, just keep it shut and say a little prayer...

16 minutes later...

you can't imagine how psyched I was when I pulled this out of the oven!

You need to serve it as soon as it came out of the oven, and oh, it does shrink a bit after a while. Gordon Ramsay does not lie.

I served this with a scoop of Connoisseur's Caramel Honey Macadamia ice cream.

Such a light, fluffy texture with a nice brown 'crust'. The combination of cold ice cream and warm Soufflé...

 

So please, give it a go!