In a stark contrast to the up-coming Technical, last week's chocolate challenge was largely stress-free, fuss-free and unobtainable-fancy-ingredients-free. Aside from a slight faff finding the right dish, Mary's Hot Chocolate Soufflé was a definite success. In true semi-final style it was a recipe none of the bakers had attempted before - me included - but after carefully reading the instructions and working through them slowly and methodically it all came together pretty smoothly indeed. There was no panicking, no swearing in vain at my KitchenAid, and no frantic restarts of the whole process from the beginning. It all sort of slotted into place, and while the end result isn't half as neat as I would have liked, I'm pretty proud of my first ever soufflé!
The original recipe can be found here, but as ever it's edited below with my notes and photographs.
Ingredients:
For the crème pâtissière chocolat:
butter, for greasing
180g/6¼oz plain chocolate (minimum 36% cocoa solids - this percentage is the super cheap value chocolate, so anything above that is fine)
300ml/10fl oz milk
25g/1oz cocoa powder
4 large free-range egg yolks
60g/2¼oz caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
40g/1½oz plain flour
For the meringue:
6 large free-range egg whites
40g/1½oz caster sugar
Method:
Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5, and place a heavy baking tray on the middle shelf of the oven.
Grease a 14x8cm (1.2 litre/2 pint) soufflé dish with butter and dust with caster sugar. With the soufflé dish, if you don't already have one hidden at the back of a cupboard then finding one now can be a bit of a nightmare. The closest I could find was this Le Creuset 14cm casserole dish (£24 on John Lewis, but £21 from the outlet shop at Cheshire Oaks), or this £5 2pt pudding bowl from Tesco. I panic bought both of them - mainly because they were ceramic, 14cm in diameter and had vaguely straight sides - but I'll be taking them back in the week as I found a better one. A few months ago I won a baking competition with Whitworths, and along with an enormous box of baking ingredients they also sent me a couple of Mason Cash mixing bowls, measuring cups and a pudding bowl. It turns out the pudding bowl was ceramic, 14cm in diameter, and had vaguely straight sides: woohoo! It may not be as deep as required, but as it saved me £26 in dishes I wouldn't ever use again, I'm not complaining!
Make a collar for the soufflé dish/similar equivalent by folding a (roughly 50x30cm/20x12in) piece of baking parchment 4 times lengthways (to make a 7½cm/3in deep collar above the rim of the dish). Wrap it around the dish and secure with string.
For the crème pâtissière chocolat, melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
Pour the milk and cocoa powder into a heavy-based pan and bring gradually to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl or a free-standing electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk together the egg yolks and caster sugar until pale, then whisk in the plain flour.
Pour the chocolate milk onto the eggs, whisking continuously, then pour back into the pan. Bring back to the boil, whisking continuously over a medium heat and cook for 1 minute until thickened.
Remove from the heat and whisk in the melted chocolate. Spoon the crème pâtissière chocolat into a bowl, cover the surface with cling film to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool to room temperature.
In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the sugar and continue whisking to a stiff and glossy meringue.
Whisk one third of the meringue mixture into the crème patissiere chocolat to loosen the mixture.
Fold in the remaining two-thirds using a large metal spoon. Make sure you have no major lumps of meringue: if you've been careful with the folding then squashing a couple of massive lumps won't ruin all the carefully incorporated air at all!
Pour the mixture into the souffle dish. The original recipe says to run your thumb around the interior rim of the dish to ensure a good rise, but I have no idea what good that actually does! Bake on the preheated baking tray for 40-50 minutes, or until well risen and springy to touch.
Serve immediately while warm.
Okay so mine cracked pretty badly on the top, and it totally deflated within around 30 seconds of being taken out of the oven but still... For a first attempt at a soufflé I don't think I really have grounds to complain!
The only way I can describe it is that Mary Berry's soufflé is like a warm chocolate mousse. It was super light, fluffy and sort of melted in your mouth. Having never even tried a soufflé before I don't know if that's what it supposed to be like, but it went down really, really well at home either way! It's extremely rich, so is best served with a dollop of cream and maybe even fresh fruit - my mum was a particular fan of the soufflé with a handful of strawberries.
Just a quick note: I had mixture left over, so if you use a 14x6cm dish (rather than the 14x8cm as advertised) then there's more than enough mixture to make 4 mini soufflés using standard ramekins too.
Have you tried making soufflés before? If not, could you be tempted to try out this one? Do let me know if you give this Technical Challenge a go in the comments below!
[N.B. this post contains affiliate links to Lakeland products.]
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