In with the In Crowd, Daring Cooks!

Arrivo, arrivo! After a whole year of living in Hotels and Corporate Apartments we have made it to Sicily!  There are no words to describe how happy I am to be unpacking knowing that I won't have to pack again for a long, long time.  Now that the kitchen is unpacked-ish, it is time to explore Sicily, starting in the kitchen. 

Chocolate and pistachio dusted ramekin

First on deck is the most recent challenge from The Daring Cook's, souffle.  I have always wanted to make a souffle but have been too afraid to try.  They are so labor intensive and in one fail swoop all can fall, leaving you with a flat, unimpressive mound of steaming hot egg.  We had our choice of sweet or savory and seeing as I love chocolate it was an easy decision.  To make use of Sicilian products I used fresh Bronte Pistachios that I picked up on a little day trip from the weekend before.  

Blog-checking lines: Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

Here is the recipe that I slightly modified from the original:

FOR THE DISHES

2 Tbsp unsalted butter, for greasing

Cocoa powder 

Finely ground Pistachios

FOR THE CREME PATISSERIE

2 tbsp  all-purpose flour

2 tsp regular or superfine sugar

½ tsp corn starch 

1 medium egg yolk

1 medium whole egg

4 Tbsp  milk

5 Tbsp  heavy cream 

3 oz good-quality dark chocolate, 70+% cocoa solids, broken in pieces

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp Pistachio plus more for dusting the tops.

FOR THE EGG WHITES

6 medium egg whites

6½ Tbsp regular or superfine sugar

Directions:

1. Heat oven to moderate 375 ˚F/190 ˚C.

2. Take four 1 cup/~240ml soufflé dishes and brush them completely with softened butter. Tip a little cocoa powder or grated chocolate into each dish, roll the dish around tilting it as you do so it is evenly lined all round.

3. For the crème patisserie, mix the flour, sugar and corn starch into a small bowl. Put egg yolk and whole egg into a medium sized bowl, beat lightly, then beat in half of the flour mixture to give a smooth paste. Tip in the rest of the flour mixture and cocoa powder and mix well.

4. To make the ganache, pour the milk and cream into a pan and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and beat until it is melted and smooth with no lumps.

5. Gradually stir hot chocolate ganache into the paste from step 3, and add the ground pistachios. This is the crème patisserie.

6. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks with an electric whisk. Sprinkle in the sugar as you are mixing. Keep whisking to give stiff, firm peaks to give volume to the soufflés.

Lovely rise.

7. Stir about 2 tbsp  of the beaten egg whites into the crème patisserie. Carefully fold in a third of the rest, cutting through the mixture. Fold in another third (take care not to lose the volume), then fold in the rest.

8. Spoon the mixture into the dishes. Run a spoon across the top of each dish so the mixture is completely flat. Take a little time to wipe any splashes off the outside of each dish, or they will burn on while cooking.

9. Bake the soufflés for 15-17 minutes.

10. The soufflés should have risen by about two thirds of their original height and jiggle when moved, but be set on top.

11.  Once out of the oven dust the tops of the souffles with more pistachios and serve.

The results are in and it was divine!  It tasted like a lighter version of a Chocolate Molten Cake, yum.   All in all I think this was a great test and I cannot wait to make this for my mother when she gets into town.  Very glad to have my first challenge back with the Daring Cook's to be such a success.

Two came out perfect while the other two tasted good but split.