Dark Chocolate Souffle...

Mention a souffle and most cooks give a little quiver and move on to another recipe. The truth is and without sounding like the crazy French chef from Ratatouille, souffle's are kinda easy. Stay with me on this..I think the hardest part of dealing with a souffle is what to do with it when it's ready to leave the oven. As soon as you open that oven door the clock starts ticking and you have minutes before it collapses and looks like a fail -It'll still taste amazing. So if your going to make one, be sure to have your audience ready to see the evidence for themselves and your not shouting at them that it really was peaked high above the ramekin two minutes ago!

Case in point, before I even started to make the souffle today I set up the whole photo site. Usually I'll do most of it but tweak and play with it when the blog post dish is ready. I knew with this though, I'd have zero time to be messing around and I was right. After almost losing my fingerprints trying to move the ramekin onto the serving plate, I hustled it to my studio dining room. I started to take pictures hoping I'd get at least one or two and later as I looked through the run of pictures taken, you can see the souffle collapse like a time-elapsed video. Sad I was, but cheered up somewhat when I ate the whole thing for lunch....

There's very few ingredients go into making a souffle, but whatever you do use be it chocolate or cheese make sure it's a good brand. Of course a chocolate souffle is almost always punctured in the middle and served with some cream and chocolate sauce, In this recipe I used some of my own brand of chocolate caramel sauce which can be seen here. You should totally give this recipe a try and grab some wow factor but remember to get your three minutes of stardom when it comes out of the oven!!

Recipe for Chocolate Souffle adapted from Real Simple:

Prep Time- 15 minutes    Bake Time- 20 minutes    Serves- 2 

3 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons sugar

3 Ounces bittersweet chocolate, 70%
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
2 Tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of cream of tartar
Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Using 1 tablespoon of the butter, grease 2 individual ramekins ( 4 inch ) liberally. Coat each ramekin with 1 tablespoon of sugar, tapping out the excess.

Place the chocolate and the remaining butter in a bowl over some simmering water. Stir until melted and set aside.

Add the vanilla to the melted chocolate and then each egg yolk. mixing until smooth.

In a bowl of a stand up mixer, place the egg whites, sugar, salt and cream of tartar. Using a whisk attachment  beat the mixture until stiff peaks appear.

Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture until well incorporated. Don't worry if you still see some whites running through the mixture, you don't want to deflate it.

Spoon the mixture into each ramekin, almost to the top, gently leveling them out. Place them on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes without opening the oven door.

Once you take them out of the oven, dust lightly with some powdered sugar and a sieve. Serve at once with some whipped cream or ice cream and chocolate sauce.