RECIPE # 2
INGREDIENTS
6 eggs - You need all the whites, but only 3 yolks. Use older eggs, not fresh.
1 cup whole milk
5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
- 62% - 70% cacao. Use your favorite brand of high quality chocolate!
This is incredibly important!
3 tablespoons butter - For buttering the ramekins. Melted.
1 vanilla bean
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder - natural unsweetened (not dutch-processed)
6 tablespoons superfine sugar - plus more for coating ramekinspowdered sugar - for dustingwhipped cream - (Optional) to top the Soufflé.
Step 1
Preheat your oven to 350º Fahrenheit.
For this recipe you will need 6 six-ounce ramekins.
Using a pastry brush or your finger, brush the melted butter on the bottom and sides of the ramekins until thinly coated.
Soufflé Making Tip: Use upward brush strokes on the sides of the ramekins. This will create groves in the butter to help the soufflé rise straight up.
Place the ramekins into the refrigerator for a couple of minutes to allow the butter to harden. Remove the ramekins from the refrigerator, dip your brush into the melted butter butter, and go over the sides of the ramekins again using upward strokes. As soon as the butter touches the cold ramekin it will stick to it. The reason for brushing the sides twice is insure that the chocolate soufflé doesn't stick to the side of ramekin. If it does, it won't rise.
Step 2
Pour a hefty amount of the superfine sugar into one of the buttered ramekins. Holding it over another buttered ramekin, turn the ramekin every which way until a light layer of the sugar sticks to the bottom and sides. It's ok if some of the sugar spills out into the other ramekin. Once it looks like the image on the left, pour the excess sugar into the other ramekin. You can even give the ramekin some light taps to make sure the excess sugar comes out. Repeat until all of the ramekins are coated in sugar. What the sugar does is act as little wheels to help the soufflé rise.
Place the ramekins into the refrigerator.
Step 3
For this step we are using vanilla to flavor the chocolate soufflé. However, you could easily change up the flavors by adding anything else. For instance, maybe the peel of an orange.
Add the milk to a saucepan. Slice open the vanilla bean lengthwise.
Step 4
Scrape out the seeds and add them to the pot along with the split open vanilla bean. Bring the milk to a boil on your stove. Remove from the heat and let the milk and vanilla steep. This will help the vanilla flavor permeate throughout the milk. After a couple of minutes, remove the split open vanilla bean and discard it.
Step 5
For this chocolate soufflé recipe, we need only 3 egg yolks, and 6 egg whites. Extremely important: You can not get ANY, not even a drop, of broken egg yolk mixed with your egg whites. Otherwise, when you make the meringue later on, the fat in the egg yolk will prevent the egg whites from whipping up. Also, try not to touch the egg whites with your fingers, as your skin naturally has oil in it.
Tip: Use cold eggs if you want the whites to separate easier from the yolks.
BEST WAY TO SEPARATE EGGS
Get out 2 small bowls and one medium-sized bowl. One small bowl will be just for safety (preventing cracked yolk from mixing with the whites), the medium-sized bowl will be for only the yolks, and the final small bowl will be for only the whites. Crack an egg on a small bowl. Cup your other hand, and allow the egg white to flow through the cracks between your fingers. Fling your hand a bit if you need to until you are left with just the yoke. Place the yolk in the medium-sized bowl. Now, whichever bowl is empty will be your safety bowl in case a yolk breaks. Crack the next egg over the safety bowl. This way if you accidentally break open a yolk, it falls into the safety bowl and doesn't ruin the bowl holding your egg whites. Should you split a yolk in the safety bowl, throw out or cook up that egg and wash out the safety bowl, and try again with a new egg. Again, place the yolk in the bowl with the yolks, and dump the egg white in the safety bowl into the bowl with the egg whites. Once you have 3 egg yolks in the medium-sized bowl, do whatever you want with the other 3 egg yolks — cook them up, stick them in the fridge to make pasta with later, etc.
Add 3 tablespoons of superfine sugar to the medium-sized bowl containing the 3 egg yolks.
Step 6
Using an electric hand mixer on the high-speed setting, beat the sugar and yolks together until the mixture becomes pale yellow in color. This should take about 3 minutes.
Step 7
Add the flour and salt and beat in until combined.
Step 8
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Add half of the vanilla flavored milk.
Step 9
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And immediately beat together using the hand mixer.
Step 10
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Transfer everything from the medium-sized bowl back into the saucepan. If you are wondering why we poured half the milk in the other bowl, it was to temper the eggs, meaning bring their temperature up slowly, so as to not scramble them.
Bring the saucepan up to a simmer, stirring CONSTANTLY with a whisk for 2-3 minutes or until it thickens.
Step 11
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Once the soufflé base has thickened, transfer it from the saucepan into a large bowl.
Step 12
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Now you need to melt your chocolate. What I did was place all the chocolate and cocoa powder into a microwave safe bowl and microwaved it for 30 seconds at a time, being sure to stir after each 30 seconds.
Step 13
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Once only small clumps of chocolate remained, I stirred it until the clumps melted and the chocolate became smooth. If you don't have a microwave, you can use a double boiler to melt the chocolate.
Step 14
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Gradually whisk the chocolate into the soufflé base.
Step 15
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Here is the chocolate soufflé base. Now we just need to whip up the egg whites to create a meringue to add to the chocolate soufflé base.
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