I finally bit the bullet and decided to try and photograph a soufflé. Already not an easy thing to make, let alone simple to photograph. Basically it involves setting everything up perfectly ( I did a few shots before hand with a dummy soufflé), making more than one example and shooting SUPER quick.

Making a soufflé and seeing it deflate feels pretty similar to doing an event. You spend ages doing the preparation but once it comes out of the oven, the result is a bit short lived. Still worth it. The cloud like texture with the rich chocolate taste is quite divine.

A few tips:

•    Make sure to butter and dust with sugar or cocoa your ramekins well. Don’t forget to clean the edges. Badly buttered and cleaned ramekins may result in the mixture sticking and not being able to rise properly.
•    Don’t forget to preheat your oven to the right temperature. Too hot and the soufflés will crack at the top, burn on the outside and be raw inside. Too cold the soufflés won’t rise properly.
•    Instead of using sugar to dust the ramekins you can also try cocoa powder, cocoa mixed with ground cinammon or other spices. Or mix the sugar with the cocoa powder to keep that crunch.

Chocolate & banana soufflé

5                     egg whites
1.5oz/40g                sugar
2                     pinches of salt
—-
2                          egg yolks
2 tbsp                 sugar
2 ripe bananas

—
3.5oz/100g                chocolate
1.5oz/50g                butter
—
Soft butter and sugar to dust your ramekins.

8 ramekins

Preheat your oven to 350°F/175°c. Butter the ramekins with a pastry brush and dust with sugar (use granulated or raw cane sugar). Make sure to tap all excess sugar off. Clean the edges of the ramekin.
Place the chocolate, butter and water in a metal or glass bowl. Place a pot of water on a low heat and put the bowl with chocolate on top of the pot. The bowl should not be in contact with the water.
In blender whizz together the egg yolks, bananas and 2 tbsp of sugar until you have a smooth mixture. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with the sugar and salt until you have medium stiff peaks or can make a wobbly bird beak with the eggwhites.
Once the chocolate mixture is melted. Beat in the egg yolks. Loosen up the mixture by adding some of the beaten eggwhites. Mix together. Using a spatula fold in the chocolate mixture into the eggwhites. Work quickly. Pour the mixture into the ramekins and bake for 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Last weekend I had Mr Soul & City and Mr Bump for dinner. My friend, Mr Bump is exactly like the Roger Hargreaves’s character, always falling over/down, bumping into, tripping up…A good week for him is to have only 3 bruises. Mr B and I both have a malay/chinese food fetish and often drool over Rasa Malaysia’s delicious posts.

So Asian food was on the menu with dim sum to start off, a crunchy fresh pineapple, cucumber, bean sprout and mint salad. Followed by, what was supposed to be an Assam laksa but unfortunately I couldn’t find all the ingredients in Chinatown.

But I did find some fresh pandan leaves or screwpine leaves. I did a little jump for joy when I found them in the supermarket (I’ve found the essence before but that’s nothing in comparison). Sweet “vanillery” smell…their perfume brings back memories of me eating malay delicacies when I was back visiting my relatives. Pandan is what vanilla is for the western world. It flavours almost all desserts and plenty savoury dishes in South East Asia.

The idea of a chilled soufflé came from eating at La Gazetta (excellent restaurant in the 12th Arrondissement, make sure to book well in advance). I had a delicious dessert which I thought at first was a mousse, only to be told by my “chefy” friend that it was actually a soufflé baked and then chilled. Unfortunately I don’t have an oven in my kitchen so I had find another way to recreate the same sensation.
I came across quite a few recipes for “cold soufflés” while surfing. The idea is to create a “fake” soufflé head. Nice idea but I couldn’t really be bothered with all that faffing around so I used the pandan leaves as the “ramekins”.
Anyway my guests *hearted* their sweet little pandan gifts…and so will you.

For other “Sugar high” treats, check out the Sugar High Friday event hosted by Habaes Brulee.

Chilled pandan soufflé

Crème pâtissière

Egg white mixture

4x 3″metal rings

To make the pandan soufflé cases. Wrap a pandan leaf around a metal ring, cut to the right length. Place inside the ring. Cover a board or flat plate with plastic film and place all the pandan cases on the plate/board.

For a “soufflé” effect: Cut 4 strips of parchment paper about 1 inch longer than the circumference and at least 1 1/2 inches taller than a 6-ounce ramekin. Wrap a parchment-paper strip around each of 4 ramekins to form a collar, and secure with tape.

Crème pâtissière
Heat the milk, cream and the rest of the pandan leaves in a heavy-based pan. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes (or until the leaves have softened). Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. Remove the leaves. Bring the cream mixture back to the boil. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with half of the sugar, then gradually beat in the cornflour. Meanwhile soak the gelatin in cold water.
When the milk and cream begin to scald, remove from the heat and slowly trickle the hot liquid over the egg mixture, whisking thoroughly as you do so. Transfer the mixture back into the pan, add the pandan essence and stir over gentle heat for about 3-5 minutes until it is smooth and thick. Transfer the crème patissière to a bowl.

Whisk the egg whites to a stiff peak, add the rest of the sugar half way through. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin. Dissolve it in a pot over a gentle heat and mix into the crème patissière. Fold the egg whites into the crème patissière.

Spoon the mixture into the pandan cases. Refridgerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.