Cheese Soufflé

After eating way too much sugar in the past few weeks, I decided I should continue baking, but try something a little more savory.  Soufflés can be sweet or savory, so I thought a cheese soufflé seemed like the perfect option. Diet food it is not, but it has no sugar! The Z Man loved this and ate the whole thing in about 10 minutes. I think he was mainly thankful I didn't force feed him another dessert. Making asoufflé was a great way to try some new techniques and learn the beauty and wonders of EGG WHITES! If whipped properly they can make your souffle triple in size. It really is a miracle. However, you have to respect them. After whipping the egg whites you must gently fold them into the souffle batter. I used Julia Child's recipe and thought it turned out pretty well. She suggested using Swiss or Parmesan cheese, but I am not a huge fan of Swiss and thought Parmesan would be too salty. I used smoked cheddar. Bad idea. Spend a little extra money and get a better cheese. I think I might try Gruyere next time since. One thing you must remember is that after taking the souffle out of the oven it must be served immediately. The eggs whites that have risen with the heat will immediately start deflating as the souffle is exposed to the cooler air. Most importantly, NO PEAKING! Let the egg whites work their magic uninterrupted for at least 25 minutes. I know it's hard, but it will pay off.


Soufflé Au Fromage (Cheese Soufflé)
Julia Child- Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Yield: 4 servings- use a 6-cup soufflé mold (I think mine was actually an 8-cup mold)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Butter the inside of the soufflé mold with 1 tsp butter and roll 1-2 Tbsp. grated cheese around the inside until completely covered. Dump the extra out.

Soufflé sauce base:

2½ quart saucepan

3 Tbsp. butter
1 cup boiling milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of nutmeg

4 egg yolks

Melt butter in the saucepan. Add flour and stir into butter with wooden spoon. Cook over moderate heat until the butter and flour foam together for two minutes without browning. (Mine still seemed to brown. I think due to the high heat of my gas stove.)  Remove from heat. After the mixture has stopped bubbling add the boiling milk. Beat vigorously with a wire whisk. Beat in seasonings. Return to moderately high heat and boil, stirring with the wire whip for 1 minute. Sauce will be very thick. Remove from heat.

Slowly add yolks to the hot mixture and beat quickly with the wire whisk. (You do not want to end up with scrambled eggs.)

Egg Whites and Cheese:
5 egg whites
pinch of salt
Finely grated cheese (3 to 4 ounces)

Add the salt to the egg whites and whisk. Whip into a stiff peak. Stir a quarter of the whipped egg whites into the the sauce made above. Stir in all but a tablespoon of the cheese. Julia Child actually used coarsely grated cheese, but I think finely grated cheese helps the egg whites rise better. Delicately fold in the rest of the egg whites. This is the most important step in making a soufflé. If you are not careful enough and overfold the soufflé will not rise to its potential height.

Helpful Tip: If you have a mixer, use it! It will make the process of whipping the egg whites much faster. If you don't, you can still whip the egg whites into a nice stiff peak with a whisk.

Turn the souffle into the soufflé mold. (Should be almost three quarters full. However,  mine was only half full as I used a bigger mold than was suggested.) Smooth the surface and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Set on a rack in the middle of the preheated 400-degree oven and immediately turn down to 375. Do not check for 25 minutes. As I said before, let the egg whites work their magic. The soufflé should have risen 2 inches over the rim, if using a 6 cup mold. Let it bake another 5-10 minutes to firm up. When ready, serve immediately.

Helpful Tips: To insure the soufflé does not spill over the rim, you can tie greased parchment paper around the rim. this also helps the soufflé to rise as it has a supportive wall to climb up.

Dark Chocolate Pot de Crème Recipe

I used aspects from a few different recipes to create my own delicious version. Recipes from Food and Wine magazine, Gourmet's Best Desserts, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Claire Robinson's show on the Food Network, Five Ingredient Fix, inspired me to come up with this recipe. It's super easy and very rewarding in the end. My version uses dark chocolate and more sugar to sweeten it up a bit more. These two things are the variables in this recipe equation. You may change them to suit your liking. Use more or less sugar if you like. Change the type of chocolate. One recipe I saw used Mexican chocolate. Once you have the basic formula down you can then get creative with it! Cooking should be fun and recipes should be suggestive and helpful guidelines, not a restrictive set of rules. 

Dark Chocolate Pot de Crème

Phoebe Meier

Yield 8 or 9 servings. The smaller size of cup the better. These are rich! Trust me. Look for cups the size of shot glasses or espresso cups.

1½ cups whole milk

½ cup heavy cream

6 large egg yolks*

12 oz. chopped dark chocolate

¾  cup sugar

In a sauce pan bring milk and cream to a simmer. Add sugar and whisk. Beat egg yolks in a bowl. Whisk ½ cup of hot milk, cream and sugar mixture into the beaten egg yolks. This tempers them (slowly increases the temperature of the egg yolks). If you were to add all the yolks to the hot mixture at once you would cook them, basically creating scrambled eggs. After you have tempered the egg yolks with ½ cup of the hot mixture you can then whisk that in with the remaining hot mixture. This is now a custard! Cook this custard over moderate heat until thickened (about 2 minutes), whisking constantly. Add the chopped chocolate  and remove from heat. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Pour evenly into dishes and let the little pot de crèmes chill and set up for at least 6 hours. They may be refrigerated for about 3 days. 

*Always save your leftover egg whites for an omelet the next day or possibly an egg white souffle

Cherry Whip

Claire Robinson- Five Ingredient Fix

  

 ½ cup heavy cream 

1 tsp. sugar

¼ cup cherry preserves at room temperature

If you love fresh whipped cream as much as I do, you might want to just go ahead and double this recipe. However, this amount will be sufficient for those of us that were blessed with having a minimal amount of self restriction and consider blatant gluttony a negative thing. This is another easy peasy. Just pour the whipped cream in a mixer and mix on high.You may whisk by hand if you don't have a mixer, but this will take much longer. Sprinkle the sugar in once the  cream begins to thicken. Mix until soft "peaks" form. Test by dabbing the cream in the center with the mixer and pull up and out. If the dab of cream holds its shape in the air this is considered a "peak." Do not over mix or the whipped cream becomes too stiff. We want soft peaks, not stiff peaks. Give the cherry preserves a quick mixing with a spoon so they are less stiff and more like liquid. Gently fold these into the whipped cream. DO NOT MIX INTO. They do not need to be fully incorporated into the whipped cream, as the more you mix the less fluffy the whipped cream will become. Simply top each pot de crème with a sizable dab of the cherry whipped cream and serve. What are you waiting for? EAT!

*If you pop your mixing bowl into the freezer for a few minutes the whipped cream will stiffen faster.  

Key Lime Pie Recipe

Key Lime Pie-
Gourmet's Best Desserts

Yield: One 9 inch pie

For filling:
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup freshly squeezed key lime juice (I just used regular limes)
1 tsp. lime zest
15 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup well-chilled heavy cream
3 Tbsp. confectioners sugar

In mixing bowl beat egg yolks until light in color. Add lime juice and zest. Beat in condensed milk. Pour mixture (now a custard) into pie pan.  Bake at 350° for 15 minutes in the middle of the oven. Let completely cool. 

Whipped cream topping: In a chilled bowl beat heavy cream (much faster and easier with mixer) until it holds soft peaks and slowly sift in confectioners sugar until it holds almost stiff peaks. Spread whipped cream over cooled pie. 

*Making whipped cream is so easy to make and it's much tastier than the crap out of a can or a tub.

**Use a piping bag to make it look more professional.

Garnishes: Get creative! I sprinkled some lime zest over the top of the pie and placed lime slices in the center. A nice pop of color showing what is hidden beneath the white whipped cream is fun and helpful to curious tasters.

For cookie crust:
You can use a regular pie dough if you wish, but I actually used a ginger cookie crust instead. I substituted ginger cookies for graham crackers in the Graham Cracker Crust recipe below.

Graham Cracker Crust recipe:

1½- 2 cups graham crackers

1/4 cup sugar if desired

1/4 cup unsalted butter- melted

Finely crush graham crackers or use a food processor. Mix with butter and sugar and press evenly into the bottom and sides of the pie pan. Bake on 350° F for 5 to 10 min.

*Note: If using cookies made with butter instead of graham crackers use less butter, add just enough to hold the crust together, maybe 2-3 Tbsp. The addition of sugar is unnecessary as well.

Dark Chocolate Pot de crème

As my second attempt at baking at home. I actually did not bake at all. I made a dark chocolate pot de crème, which is actually a simple and intensely chocolate tasting custard made in a pot on the stove and poured into little pots or small ramekins. They are very rich and each bite should be blissfully savored. The recipe actually called for bittersweet chocolate, but as Trader Joe's did not sell their 18 oz bittersweet chocolate bars without almonds, I got the big dark chocolate one instead. As dark chocolate is delicious, but not as sweet as bittersweet I actually added more sugar to my heated milk and cream mixture simmering on the stove. Really, the only slightly complicated part of the process was slowly whisking part of the heated cream mixture to the egg yolks to bring up the temperature of the yolks without cooking them. I used the easy recipe for cherry whipped cream from Claire Robinson's show Five Ingredient Fix. Simply whip some cream and carefully fold in cherry preserves. I got my cherry preserves from Trader Joe's and think they are excellent. I find people love fresh whipped cream and the cherry preserves add a nice pop of color. Overall it was easy, quick and extremely satisfying. I gave a couple to my friends Paul and Lauralyn for Paul's birthday and they seemed to enjoy them very much. Even the Mister enjoyed them and considered them equivalent to those found at Taste, a favorite restaurant in Indianapolis.

Helpful tips: Use very small containers for these. A little goes a long way. Think the size of a shot glass or perhaps using small espresso cups.

Key Lime Pie

My first attempt at baking at home was making a key lime pie. I used a recipe from Gourmet's Best Desserts cook book and added a few touches of my own. Instead of using a graham cracker crust I used some candied ginger cookies I put in the food processor and added melted to butter to. I then pressed them evenly in my spring form pan and baked for 10 min on 350 degrees. Since I could not find any key limes I just used regular limes instead. I made my own whipped topping with heavy cream and powdered sugar and spread evenly over the top. To add a little extra lime flavor I grated some lime zest over the top. It turned out really delicious and a great way to end the spring and bring in the summer.

Helpful tips: The crust was a little too buttery and if you are using cookies to make the crust make sure to add just a little butter to help hold them together, as cookies already have butter in them. Please be patient and let it fully cool before removing the spring form pan. As you can see from the first to second photo, I did not wait.... Also, add the whipped topping just before serving, as the whipped cream tends to stiffen over time. If the key lime pie is sitting out for long periods of time or is made in advance consider using a meringue topping instead.