Monday, January 7, 2008

Raspberry Souffles

Since I brought the truffles I made to a friend's house but forgot to make a dairy-free alternative for his sister, I was challenged to make a raspberry dessert. Using my new favorite baking/dessert cookbook, I managed to concoct my first souffle.

Raspberry Souffle

This dessert was a little labor intensive. I had to make a raspberry-merlot sauce first, which took some time although it was easy. Then you have to whip up some egg whites to medium peaks and attempt to fold the liquid into the foam (which I did not do completely, but then again I had to transfer the recipe down the street so it was inevitably not going to be perfect). Pour this into some ramekins and bake. I was worried I would do something to cause the souffles deflate like in all the movies, but they were pretty sturdy. The water in the mixture turns to steam to cause them to rise. They then have a soft, airy and creamy texture to them.

The chocolate sauce is a basic ganache recipe (same cookbook) that has been thinned out a bit. The "master" ganache is 8 ounces of chocolate to 8 ounces of cream. I made this using 4 ounces of chocolate (2oz bittersweet and 2oz semisweet) and 6 ounces of soy creamer. It looks good but it had small bits in it that you could tell it was not a perfect emulsion of chocolate in the creamer. I think it is because the soy creamer did not have as much fat as regular cream. But it all tasted very good, which is what counts.

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