Raspberry Souffle for Mothers’ Day

Tuesday, 10 May 11

I turn to Tim, “You know, it’s been a really long time since I’ve photographed food.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, not since tres leches at Easter.”

“You know…that was only two weeks ago.”

But what a long two weeks it has been. For once, there are photos of people in my camera, when once upon a time, you could literally scroll through my memory card and not have a single glimpse of a human…well, except for maybe someone photobombing the cake. There are photos of flowers, and buildings and three-headed dogs (learning to use the multiple exposure function – Tora was not terribly impressed). And now, souffle.

It was Mothers’ Day on Sunday, and all morning I had been dreaming of a pink dessert. Musing out loud “raspberry souffle…rose and lychee sabayon…raspberry coulis…” (Dad replied “Sounds good.” Mum: “…What?”). Not that Mum is a particularly pink sort of person (except after a couple glasses of wine), but I wanted to do something that would be challenging, but also sweet and light.

So Mum went off to visit Grandma, Dad cooked french onion soup and roast lamb with cider and honey, and I made dessert.

It was far easier than I had assumed.

I was a little worried when Tim, recalling a scene from Glee, piped up “Did you leave room for them to rise?”. Me: “Uh…recipe didn’t say so”, but the souffles rose beautifully, if a little unevenly. When the timer went off, I whispered “No one sneeze”, gently opened the oven door, and holding my breath and a pair of kitchen towels, cautiously slid them out of the oven and onto a heat mat on the table. A dusting of icing sugar covered any surface imperfections, and then I “plated up”, with a drizzle of raspberry coulis, some of my aunt’s heart-shaped Napoleons and a jar of rose and lychee sabayon.

All the components were perfect. The souffle was airy and disappeared like a wisp of cloud on the tongue, the tart raspberries balancing the sweet floral sabayon. A perfect dessert for my Mum.

Recipes

(based loosely on Bill Granger’s Raspberry Souffle and Maggie Beer’s Sabayon, inspired by Pierre Herme’s Ispahan)

Rose and Lychee Sabayon

4 egg yolks
2 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 can lychee, pureed in syrup and strained – reserve 100 mLs of lychee juice
1/2 tsp rose water essence

Whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until pale and creamy. Add the lychee juice. Place over,but not touching a pan of simmering water, whisking continuously. Be sure to control the heat so that the eggs do not scramble.

Once a figure of 8 can be drawn across the surface before disappearing, remove from heat, add rose water and continue to whisk until cool. Serve within an hour.

Raspberry Souffle

In a few rare instances you may note a sudden increase in heartbeat, rashes on the pores and skin, and problem in inhaling and exhaling. my store cialis sale How to treat erectile dysfunction? A sexologist or rather a sex specheapest cheap viagra t is the person that an individual must look out for in case of any sexual issues including erectile dysfunction. What’s more, you can also find browse around here viagra 5mg, called Lovegra as well as herbal alternatives as well. And since they are all pretty dang unholy as it is, we figured God might not be a fast remedy cialis viagra generico valsonindia.com towards a complete cure for this health issue. Raspberry coulis

300 g frozen raspberries
1/4 cup caster sugar

Place raspberries and sugar in a pan over low heat along with a splash of water, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Take off heat and allow to cool, then puree and strain.

Base

2/3 of raspberry coulis
2 tsp cornflour, dissolved in 2 tsp cold water.

Bring the raspberry coulis to a boil, then whisk in cornflour mixture. Immediately take off the heat and whisk until cornflour has fully dissolved. Allow to cool completely – this may be made hours in advance of dessert time.

Souffle

4 egg whites at room temperature
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Butter and caster sugar to line the moulds

In advance (I did it at the same time as I made the base), brush the ramekins with melted butter, being careful to brush vertically up the sides of the moulds, which will allow the souffle to rise. Sprinkle with caster sugar, tipping out excess (the original recipe said to do this twice, but I think once would be quite sufficient). Place ramekins in fridge until ready to use.

Preheat oven to  170 degrees C.

In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites and salt together at medium-high speed until soft peak. Gradually add the caster sugar in until the egg whites form stiff peaks. Stir a third of the egg whites into the base, incorporating thoroughly, before folding the remainder through gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Take the ramekins out of the fridge, and drizzle coulis down the sides of the ramekins to get the pink stripes you can see in the photograph above. Spoon the souffle mixture into each ramekin, smoothing the surface with a spatula and cleaning the edge of the ramekin. Place on a tray and into the hot oven for about 15 minutes, or until well risen and slightly colouring on top.

Serve immediately, with an autumnal snow’s dusting of icing sugar, the sabayon and remaining coulis.

P.S. We had two big ramekins of souffle leftover – they sank overnight in the fridge, but we reheated them in the oven and they rose a good inch above the ramekin again, and were just as good for the next night’s dinner of leftovers. The sabayon doesn’t keep, but I had some vanilla custard that I warmed up and served with the raspberry coulis. <3

6 Comments

1. Your souffles look just beautiful. It’s good that the smaller ones rose so much, too. PS: I’d love to see a picture of a 3-headed dog.

   Comment by OohLookBel — May 10, 2011 @ 5:26 pm

2. nawww so beautiful! your souffles look perfect!

   Comment by chocolatesuze — May 10, 2011 @ 11:34 pm

3. So pretty and pink! I can’t say no to souffles, nor to raspberries.

   Comment by mademoiselle délicieuse — May 14, 2011 @ 10:19 am

4. This is just stunning Chris! You did a brilliant job and I bet she was ever so pleased :D

   Comment by Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella — May 23, 2011 @ 8:03 pm

5. Fantastic looking souffles!

   Comment by SK — May 26, 2011 @ 8:45 am

6. wow they look sooo good yum!

   Comment by betty — June 2, 2011 @ 11:40 am

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

.