33 Week Challenge Week 2 - Souffle!

Ah Friday nights: drugs, alcohol, gratuitous sex… soufflé.

Ok, so only two of those things happened on my Friday night and I’ll give you a hint, neither of them was drugs or sex. I drank a small amount of alcohol, and made an awesome amount of soufflé: Challenge Number 5.

Unfortunately, the sickness which I predicted last week that would hit me sometime during winter has already got me, so this will be a quick, probably not very funny post, written from my bed. Huurrrrrgh. Excuse me.

I didn’t really know anything about soufflé before I started, but conversations with a few people and a few internet searches led me to believe that: 1. Soufflé is frighteningly difficult to make, 2. No it’s not, really, everyone just says that and 3. It’s just cake with lots of extra egg white.  I also learnt that there can be sweet or savoury soufflés… um, there was really no question here which I was going to make – so I made this one: easy chocolate souffle recipe - May I suggest to give this a quick skim read. It will help you feel as though you were there! And will also mean that I don’t have to explain each step. (ACHOOOO – excuse me).

I went out and bought all the ingredients, except that my local IGA DIDN’T STOCK LINDT, WTF? But I got Cadbury Old Gold 50% anyway which proved to work just fine and as I bought 4 times more than I needed for no real reason has also served as a delicious snack during my illness.

Upon starting the recipe it suddenly occurred to me that there was no flour in this cake-with-extra-egg-white, or indeed any milk. I thought perhaps the author was a bit crazy. But I went ahead and followed it anyway, because I am not an idiot like those on Masterchef who think they can make stuff better than the professional chefs. Honestly, how can you fail?! There are step-by-step instructions in front of you! “Oh I don’t believe in measuring ingredients…” Dimwit!

ANYWAY, I got my housemate to melt the chocolate for me, as the author of this recipe clearly has 6 hands (or perhaps a better electric beater than me) and was able to melt the chocolate, beat the whites and combine the yolks and sugar simultaneously. I, being possessed of only 2 hands and also little patience, was not capable of this. 

The recipe has some oddly specific phrases, like “drizzle the chocolate slowly into the egg yolk mix”. I wasn’t quite sure where the line between drizzling and pouring was, but I managed to wing it fairly successfully. Once you’ve drizzled, and beaten, and folded in the correct order, you’re left with a not very cake-like mixture at all. It’s very light and sort of moussey. I baked this concoction in the oven and 25 minutes later, had 3 rather delicious-looking soufflés. Unfortunately, they sank almost instantly, but they never looked like the picture on the website anyway, so I wasn’t too upset. They also tasted awesome!

I took a photo of them, and was subsequently dismayed by my ugly kitchen bench:

So I took another photo of them on a tea towel.

I wasn’t going to tell you that bit, originally – but I like to be genuine on this blog. I’ll never lie to you, I promise (mostly). I would count this challenge as not finished, but certainly started. I could improve them a bit and besides, I want to eat them again - so I'm going to keep making them under the guise of completing the challenge. I may serve them at the dinner party I will be hosting, which is number 11 on the list.

Also, herb update ( I definitely just got myself out of bed to and into the rain to take this photo, so be grateful and/or excited):