The Fear of Souffle’s
Souffle’s can be fearful to make due to the exacting process and opportunities for things to go wrong. However with practice you can get good at it like all things in life
The joy of Souffle
Once you get it right though, they can provide moments of joy. They are like a rousing Finale to a meal and entice anyone around with the visuals, the light airy foam and the rich flavors. We practiced as well. A lot. We practiced with a basic chocolate souffle. We got it right the third time. First two attempts were not bad, they were infact delicious but not presentable. As my wife watched me make them, she did say failure has never tasted so delicious.
As mastering someone else’s recipe in this case is itself hard enough, experimenting with your own combinations can be daunting. We tried making this in a tea cup and saucer, we learnt that this does not work as the cups are too tall and narrow making the souggle spill over. We tried making them in mason jar cups but we found the heating to be uneven. We have thus decided to settle on straight edged ramekins. This is not a hard recipe but does need some experience, so please don’t be disappointed if first time is not right. Ramekins choice does matter and even with our chocolate souffle practice we got the best results in our third attempt with the ramekins of our choice. So does good preparation before you start. Like bringing the butter to room temperature, keeping ingredients in every step pre measured. Prepare in a cool calm kitchen the first time and then the individual steps and gestures become habit.
For this souffle we decided to use the pistachio butters which are hitting the grocery aisles in Madison and are locally made. These are very rich indeed and there is a limit to which you can reduce the sugar in this recipe as it is important for the tenderising texture of the souffle as well as for the construction of the stiff meringue. So we decided to pair it with the earthy notes of matcha.
The pastry cream can be made ahead of time, just store in the refrigerator and let cool to room temperature.
The folding of the meringue into to the pastry cream should be done gently and in three stages making sure not to let the mixture collapse.
Once out of the oven, be ready to serve. The souffle’s are best consumed within minutes. So keep towels to handle the hot ramekins and the serving plates and spoons ready.
Pistachio and Matcha Souffle
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 mins
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- – For Pastry Cream
- 175 gm whole milk
- 17 gm all purpose flour
- 17 gm arrowroot flour
- 60 gm Sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 2 Tbsp room temperature butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 100 gm pistachio paste
- – For preparing ramekins
- room temperature butter
- equal parts sugar and coco powder
- – For the meringue
- 5 egg whites
- 40 gm sugar
- squeeze of lime juice
- – For dusting
- 4 tsp matcha tea powder
Instructions
- – First make pastry cream
- Heat 175 gm whole milk on low-med heat in a pan stirring with a whisk
- mix using whisk 4 egg yolks, 17 gm flour, 17 gm arrowroot starch (sub flour), 60 gm sugar, 2 Tbsp room temperature butter, 1 tsp salt
- add to milk and cook on low heat till the mixture starts getting thicker
- Add pistachio butter/paste and keep whisking till incorporated and pastry cream gets shiny and thick, do not make it too thick, take it off heat
- Transfer to a large mixing pot
- – Pre-Heat oven with a baking pan in the oven to 375 F
- – Choose ramekins with a very straight sharp edge all the way and a flat heat transferring base
- Butter four ramekins thoroughly without missing a spot on both bottom and sides with room temperature butter and add granulated sugar and some coco powder and roll it around so that it sticks to the butter and add excess to next ramekin and repeat
- – Whip 5 egg whites with a slight squeeze of lemon/lime till foamy and then add 40 gm granulated sugar and whip till stiff peaks form with a shiny meringue
- – whisk 1/3rd of this meringue into the chocolate pastry cream base and mix thoroughly
- – then gently fold using spatula the second 1/3rd of the meringue into the pastry cream being gentle and not over-mixing, making sure the mixture does not collapse
- – then finally add last third of meringue and fold gently again
- Pour the mixture into ramekins and tap the ramekin to make sure no air pockets were created during the transfer, level off the edge with a knife or an offset pastry spatula, make sure to wipe the edge off
- Add ramekins to the hot pan in the oven, the hot pan helps initial rise. Close the oven and bake for 15 to 17 minutes, preferably watching them. Do not open the oven door till baked as this will drop the oven temp down.
- Keep serving plates prepared. As soon as done, with a towel around the ramekins remove them and set on plate, dust with matcha and serve. Can add vanilla/chocolate ice cream to open center of soufflé, best if consumed within minutes of baking.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
