Souffles: The Fancy Omelettes

I have hardly any photos of my week with souffles, mainly because I was in such a rush to complete my class assignments that I didn't have time to take photos. The other reason being that souffles hardly look impressive or beautiful after the first few minutes out of the oven. They actually go from luxurious, proud puffs to sad, wilted eggs in a ramekin :(



Flourless Strawberry Souffles


Out of the oven for like 2 minutes and already sinking...

Truth be told, I hate souffles. My goal for the week was to change my mind about them, and I had 3 chances to change my tune. To me, souffles are another variation of the omelet, which I don't really like anyway. Why waste the calories on a "breakfast" food at dessert? I'd much rather have creme brule or ice cream or a different variation of eggs, cream, butter, and sugar (sometimes throwing flour in the mix, maybe some berries or chocolate, or even better some liquor). But I digress...So, my personal challenge to myself was to actually like souffle, and I accomplished it, with the help of a little pastry cream.

As many readers of this blog know, I've been creaminally challenged. That is, I've had serious issues messing up my pastry cream. Until last Wednesday, when I decided that the only way to conquer my fear was to tackle it head on in the face of performance anxiety. Unbeknownst to me prior to Souffle Week, is that there is actually a type of souffle made with pastry cream. It is the second most stable of the three souffle variations (flourless (least stable), pastry cream (more stable), and roux based (most stable)). Learning this, initially I decided to scrap the pastry cream souffle because we only had to make 2 of 3. However, my inner ambitious nerd overpowered me, and I decided to try to make all 3.

Sorry this is a long post...

Basically, I am kind of inept on Monday nights in class. I am like a deer in headlights, not on my game at all, so when Jennifer gives us the list of the million things we need to accomplish in class by week's end, it's Monday at 9:15 and I've done like 2 things and think I am totally screwed for the week. BUT THEN...something miraculous happens, and by Wednesday I am ready to crank desserts out in high gear. Take souffle week for example. I was only able to make a flourless strawberry souffle and strawberry coulis IN 2 HOURS-that is so lame (and the roux for the roux based chocolate souffle)! But on Wednesday, I made pastry cream, a lemon pastry cream based souffle, finished the chocolate roux based souffle, made a chocolate roulade (thanks for the stabilized whipped cream, Kate) and a sabayon. Side note, sabayon, made with eggs, sugar, and wine) is the yummiest way to drink. Seriously. It is so good. The French make sabayon with muscat wine and the Italians make it with marsala and call it zabaglione. Either way, it's a frothy alcoholic beverage (can be made with cider for the kids) and it's great!

I embraced the souffle challenge and made the YUMMIEST lemon souffle with pastry cream, accomplishing 2 things. 1) I finally made pastry cream successfully (hadn't done it right since week 1) and 2) I learned to like souffle...but only if there's cream in it.