Souffle - Yes, you can!

Valentines Day also happens to be our Anniversary. We don't like to plan months in advance, fight the crowds and pay the Vday up-charge that comes with going out to dinner on that day so we usually make a fancy dinner at home instead.

Dessert is always a must. And it must be something special. So what could be more special than a souffle, right? I mean the difficulty level is supposed to be off the charts. So I decided to give it a go.

Now, I am not a baker. Love to cook but baking is not my thing. It requires precision and a level of attention to detail that I am just not comfortable with. My good friend Susanne Dudley thrives on the order of baking. Not me. I much prefer to throw a bunch of ingredients together and let them sing. Baking requires that you actually measure. With measuring tools. Not just eye-balling a teaspoon in the palm of your hand.

I knew I could be in over my head so I did some research, read through several souffle recipes online and their reviews. In doing so, I learned you can actually make it a few hours ahead of time. Who knew! That dropped the level of difficulty significantly. I settled on this recipe from Epicurious (mainly because others called for cream of tartar and I didn't have any) and away I went.

All that talk about baking precision flew out the window, however, when I looked at the size of my souffle dish. The recipe makes 2-4 servings. And it said you should put those servings in 6 oz ramekins. I don't have ramekins that size and preferred to make just one big souffle - (4) 6oz servings is 24oz. The only souffle dish I had was 32oz. Hmmmm. This could be bad. It was too late to run out for a new dish so I charged ahead.

I melted the chocolate, whipped the yolks, folded it all together and put it in my too-large souffle dish. Seemed to fit ok so I put it in the fridge with an inverted bowl on top. I took it out about 30 minutes before I was ready to bake it (sheer gut instinct told me it would bake better from room temperature). 24 minutes in the oven and...

VOILA!

Amazing! I cannot believe it worked. I was just praying for something edible but it actually looked pretty. I hadn't planned to write about it, but when I saw it come out of the oven so beautifully, I couldn't help but take a picture! And it was delicious.

OK so it may have gotten a tad bit higher had it been in a tad bit smaller dish. And it was a little runny in the center and maybe could have used another minute in the oven, but HELLOOOOO... chocolate souffle right in my own kitchen!

Yes, you can do it too (even you, Stacy Drake). Try it the next time you want to impress someone - or yourself!