Archive for the ‘Souffles’ Category
There are plenty of ways to enjoy fresh summer strawberries. You can stuff them into a shortcake or pile them up into a pie, as well as add them to cereal and toss them into a salad. Shortcakes are probably my favorite strawberry dessert, but I’ve recently added a new recipe to my list of strawberry dessert options: a strawberry souffle.
This light, fluffy Strawberry Souffle is made with just a few ingredients – and fresh strawberries make up the bulk of it. Whole berries are pureed with some sugar, cornstarch and a very small amount of lemon or lime juice (which just brightens up the berries a tiny bit). Egg whites are beaten to stiff peaks with a little bit of sugar and are then folded into the puree. Everything is divided up into ramekins and baked. The souffle has a beautiful pink color (the darker your berries, the darker the souffle), a not-too-sweet strawberry flavor and an airy texture that reminds me of Strawberry Chiffon Cake. As an added bonus, this dessert is so light that it is fat free, so you’ll never feel guilty about ending a meal with it.
The souffle will rise up quite high in the oven and, like most souffles, will sink down as it cools. That said, it is pretty structurally sound for a souffle and will retain its shape very well for quite a while, even after it has cooled. This means that you can serve the souffles hot or warm, and you don’t need to feel any pressure about getting the dessert to the table the instant it comes out of the oven.
This recipe is best made with fresh strawberries, although if you defrost and drain frozen berries before using them, they will work in the recipe. I have to admit, though, that I put this solidly in the summertime dessert category and make it only when I have good, fresh strawberries available. I serve this plain or with a little bit of whipped cream. One way to make it a little more decadent – and to add a fancy finish to impress dinner guests with – is to drizzle it with melted chocolate or fudge sauce before serving, too.
+Continue Reading
Souffles are a very versatile dessert because they are light, yet satisfying. Chocolate souffles can be fairly rich and you might not want to have one after a very meal. Lemon souffles, on the other hand, have a bright and fresh flavor that you can always make room for. These Lemon Blackberry Souffles have an easy to make lemon base that is made with fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. There is very little added fat in these – aside from the egg yolks that give the souffle their body – so they actually are just as light as they taste.
The souffles themselves are lemon. The blackberries are actually buried at the bottom of the ramekins, underneath the cloud-like lemon topping. In the oven, they become sweeter and juicier, and add some extra sweetness to the souffles when they’re served. I used fresh, whole blackberries for these souffles. You can substitute other berries, such as raspberries, blueberries or boysenberries. If you only have frozen berries, defrost and drain the berries, then spoon them into the ramekins in a single layer. You’ll have a saucier result this way, as the fresh berries hold their shape well during baking, but you’ll still get the same great flavor.
These are best served when they’re fresh from the oven, warm and rising dramatically above the rims of their ramekins. The recipe doesn’t take long from start-to-finish (and it is possible to prepare the base earlier in the day and beat in the egg whites just before baking), so it’s fairly easy to pop these into the oven at the end of a meal and be ready to eat them just as the coffee has finished brewing. If you must let them sit before serving, they’ll deflate a bit, but they’ll still have great flavor and will be enjoyable to eat.
+Continue Reading
There aren’t too many souffles that focus on vanilla as a flavor. Chocolate, double chocolate, citrus and all kinds of other fruits seem to work themselves in easily. I’m not complaining because I really enjoy a good chocolate souffle, but sometimes I just want that vanilla to stand out more. These Ricotta Souffles are a perfect vehicle for vanilla because, like cream cheese in a cheesecake, mild ricotta cheese has a subtle flavor that adds richness and structure to the souffle while letting the vanilla be a focal flavor.
This recipe is based on one I clipped out of an issue of Food & Wine magazine a couple of years ago (I was able to find it online, too!) for a lemon-flavored version. I eliminated the lemon, loaded up on vanilla and kept the technique the same. This souffle starts out with a choux pastry dough, made by cooking butter, water and flour together in a skillet. Ricotta, egg yolks and vanilla are added to this base, then beaten egg whites are folded in before dividing the mixture into ramekins for baking. The choux dough, which is the same type of pastry used to make cream puffs and eclairs, ensures that the top of this souffle becomes wonderfully crisp when it is fresh out of the oven.
The finished souffles will fall fairly quickly, but that doesn’t take away from their deliciousness. They have a crisp top, moist and cheesecake-like interior, but with a very tender texture thanks to all that ricotta cheese. Even the leftovers – which can be stored in the refrigerator – taste good. You can definitely taste the vanilla in the souffles, too. Since they’re relatively plain (but delicious on their own), they are perfect for pairing up with a fruit garnish. I used freshly whipped cream and some blackberries, simmered lightly in a bit of sugar to sweeten them up.
+Continue Reading
Yogurt can be a great, no fuss base for souffles. This is particularly true of thick Greek-style yogurt, as it provides a lot of body to the base of a souffle recipe. One of my favorite souffles that features yogurt is my Yogurt Cheesecake Souffles, as they have a fluffy texture but a rich cheesecake-like flavor in spite of the fact that they include no cream cheese in the recipe. The souffle itself is only mildly flavored, and I made a little variation on it by adding some Nutella to the souffle base.
The souffle has a taste and texture that is very similar to a mousse, although it is served piping hot shortly after it emerges from the oven. It has a relatively subtle Nutella flavor when compared to eating a spoonful of the stuff straight out of the jar, but the clear hazelnut and chocolate notes come through well and make the souffle both airy and tasty. The tang of the yogurt, as well as the fact that there just isn’t that much sugar in this recipe to begin with, keeps things from getting too sweet. It’s a great dessert to end a meal – even a big one – thanks to its lightness. Plus, it only takes a couple of minutes to mix up the base and pop it into to bake.
The souffles will rise up impressively in the oven (see photo below) and are pretty stable, so while they will deflate and sink down slightly into the ramekins as they cool off (see photo above), you don’t have to worry about them being so fragile that they’ll collapse with a puff of air. As I said before, Greek-style yogurt works the best for this recipe, as “regular” yogurt can be a little bit on the thin side. Any fat content will work, and you should be able to find Greek-style yogurt in most grocery stores. If you can’t, drain some plain yogurt over a cheesecloth for 15-30 minutes to allow some of the excess moisture to drain out and leave behind a thicker, more cheese-like, yogurt.
+Continue Reading
Maple is a flavor that is frequently used to enhance other foods, whether you’re drizzling maple syrup over waffles or a savory side of sweet potatoes. It isn’t often showcased entirely on its own. I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising, given that maple syrup is so sweet, but it also has a very complex and rich flavor to it – especially if you buy the darker “grade B” maple syrup that I tend to favor – and you just need to find a good backdrop to bring it out.
In this case, I made a very simple souffle and spiked it with maple syrup. The souffle is very simple, with just four main ingredients. I used a little bit of yogurt as the base because I had such great souffle results with it in my Yogurt Cheesecake Souffles. Yogurt brings a bit of richness to the texture of souffle and, in this case, the tartness of plain yogurt was just enough to take the edge off of the maple syrup and prevent the souffles from being too sweet. Instead, the ultra-soft souffles have a flavor that borders on caramel and reminds me a lot of flan. They’re still sweet, but not cloying, and are the perfect accompaniment to some after dinner coffee or tea.
The souffles are quite low in fat (not low in sugar, however) and, even though souffles have a reputation for being tricky, they’re very easy to make. All you need to do is beat the egg whites to soft peaks with some sugar, then fold in the maple syrup and yogurt. It takes about 3 minutes, then you just have top pop them into the oven. Don’t worry about deflating them in any way when you open the door to check on them; the souffles are resilient, even though they’re light. Speaking of lightness, the souffles may actually rise up over the top of the ramekins because they are so fluffy. They’ll sink back down into the cups as they cool slightly and, although you can certainly wait a few minutes to eat them, they are best when they are served shortly after baking, still hot from the oven.
This recipe is small and fills up two 8-oz ramekins perfectly, with just a little bit leftover. You can certainly divide the recipe into three ramekins and fill them up a bit less (or use 6-oz ramekins; baking time is about the same) if you want to stretch it, but I think it’s nice to have a recipe that really works for a small serving. The recipe doubles easily if you need to serve a group and want to make a bigger batch.
+Continue Reading
